Chaos Has a Whole New Meaning
by MaggieTheUnicorn
Summary: When fifteen year old Sofia discovers that she's the daughter of the greek goddess Chaos, all chaos breaks loose! Nico/OC... enjoy!
1. A Perfect Hell

"Sofia, honey, get in here!" my mother's shrill voice yelled out of the house. I sighed and continued to stare at the clear night sky. There were never any clouds blocking the sky in Texas this time a year, though I wished we didn't live so close to Houston, so I could see more stars. I guess the suburbs would have to do until I could get out of there.

Lying down in our back yard, staring up at the sky, I could hear my mother talking on the phone quite clearly from our unnecessarily big house. True to southern fashion, our section of the suburbs was one of oversized houses, large backyards, soccer moms, rat dogs, mini vans, and block parties. It scared me sometimes how perfect our lifestyle was. Every house in our beautifully organized town was pristine, looking like it had come straight out of a magazine, mine included. Everyone's dream house was my nightmare. I hated the perfection that manifested in every corner of our home, from our giant kitchen, to our perfectly groomed bichon frise.

I have a thing for chaos, one might say. In an attempt not to feel like I'm intruding in my own home, with its plastic covered couches and perfectly symmetrical coffee table, I make myself completely comfortable in my room I take pride in keeping a total mess. The chaos makes the rest of the house bearable, or, as bearable as it can get.

But a closed off room will only keep one sane for a short amount of time, at least until they get hungry and have to sneak downstairs for food. So, as a confused fifteen year old living in a perfect hell, I spent the majority of my time outside, lying on our perfect back lawn, staring up at the sky and watching the puffy white clouds float past, or gazing at the largely disordered stars that stayed scattered across the black abyss above like salt across a tablecloth.

"Sofia! I mean it! Get in here now!" my mom's heavily accented voice screamed out of our back door. I sighed, picked myself up off of the ground, dusted myself off, and walked towards the door. I swung it open and saw my mom standing at our kitchen counter, chomping away on a leftover biscuit from dinner and talking on the phone.

I sat down at the island in the middle of the kitchen and grabbed an orange from the bowl next to me as I watched my mother blab into the phone. "I know, Jenny, I know it's hard! You deserve better than him!"

Once I got all the skin off of my orange, I took one of the little triangles and popped it into my mouth, waving at my mother with my free hand. She covered the bit of the phone you talk into with her hand and leaned it away from her mouth.

"Hey, honey, go upstairs and get ready for bed, it's late," she whispered just loud enough to be audible over the loud sobs coming from her friend over the phone. I nodded and got up off of the stool, bringing the orange with me upstairs.

I pushed open the door to my room, feeling as if a thousand weights had been lifted from my chest when I spotted the familiar messiness. I kicked off my flip flops, throwing them into the sea of clothes on the floor and stepped inside, not bothering to avoid the stuff on the ground. I opened the door to my closet, seeing that all that was inside was a pair of sweatpants and a tank top. Satisfied with that, I pulled them off the now bare shelves and put them on, walking out into the bathroom to clean my teeth, and once that was done, venturing back into my room to curl up and go to sleep.

I took the clothes off of my bed and threw them on the floor with the rest of my closet, climbing in and feeling sleep take over me as soon as my head hit the pillow.

The last thing I remember from that night was staring up at my ceiling, half asleep, and hearing the faint noise of the country radio station on in the background, and although that was perfect, and the way I fell asleep every night, I couldn't help thinking something was wrong.

…

**AN: Chapter one of my first full fanfic! The next chapter will take her to camp halfblood… promise! This one is dedicated to my friend sophie, who is the idea behind sofia… love her!**

**Thanks to my awesome beta Shane… she's my best friend and my worst nightmare all wrapped on one! 3333**

**3 Maggie! :P**


	2. Mediterranean, No Doubt

I hate math class. There. I said it. There is nothing I hate more in this world than math. There's just something about the set order of things, how nothing ever differs from the next, that sends chills up and down my spine. I hate it.

Math homework is like some sick, twisted joke that my teachers play on me every single day. Sheet after sheet after sheet, I work my ass off during the day, pulling out my hair and stifling frustrated screams, and what do I get in return? More work.

Class work isn't that much better, to be honest. The second I look at all those numbers, ordered and perfect, set with one definite answer, my head starts to pound and I get sick to my stomach. After spending the first half of this semester staring out of the window, my math teacher started shutting the blinds, and in an attempt to lighten up the room, she covered the walls with bright yellow paper, my ultimate un-favorite color. I like yellow, yes, but not when it's everywhere. Smiley faces and peace signs littered the room, making me feel like I'm living a John Lennon song.

So naturally, when the bell rings, I'm the first one out of there, sprinting down the hallway and into my next class as if my life depended on it. Sometimes that got me in trouble. I'd smack straight into people, knock them to the ground, apologize hastily, and dash down the corridor in a frantic attempt to get as far away from that wretched classroom as possible on pretty much a daily basis.

But one Thursday, I was even more on edge than ever before. Mixed in with the typical nausea of arithmetic was the faint nagging of insecurity, like a buzzing mosquito that refuses to make itself seen as it flies around your ear. Naturally, I ignored it, but as the period progressed, the mosquito buzzed louder and louder, closer to my ear, and it became harder to pass off as the normal feelings I get in math.

These two feelings are not ones that make a good combination, so I fled as soon as the bell rang. As I sprinted from my math room before my teacher had a chance to protest, nothing seemed too out of the ordinary. And when I ran smack into some unsuspecting kid, that didn't seem too weird either. What was weird was that the kid I knocked over, actually looked surprised that I ran into him.

The rest of the school was used to my insane sprints from our math classroom so much that when they got knocked over, they simply rolled their eyes and got up, acting as if nothing happened. My normally racing mind actually jogged for a second when the kid on the floor beneath me looked shocked as he stared up at my face, and in that short time span of complete confusion, another thing struck me as weird. I didn't recognize him. I wasn't popular at this school, God no, but I knew the faces of everybody here, and he was definitely not one I'd seen before.

From what I could see in the five short seconds I was looking at him, he had shaggy black hair and olive skin, Mediterranean, no doubt. He stared up at me with a pair of deep black eyes so dark, it actually hurt to stare into them. He had on a red tee shirt and black skinny jeans, a belt tied around his waist holding up something that looked vaguely like a dagger. I don't know what, but something about him instantly screamed danger; he was radiating strength. He scared me. So I ran, if possible, faster than before.

I kept running, forgetting about the boy I'd ran into, taking a break once I reached the doors that lead out into the soccer field. I pushed them open and walked out, taking a breath of the fresh air. The bees that flew above my head were quite a sight for swore eyes, let me tell you!

I sat down at the bottom of a tree on the edge of the field, leaning up against the trunk as I weighed my options. I could go back to class and suffer through another period of math (I had science after math), or I could stay here for a while until I had something fun, like English or band. I chose the second one.

I reached into my book bag and pulled out a notebook and a pen, deciding to doodle to pass the time. I was so immersed in my drawings, I hardly noticed it suddenly get very quiet. All the chirping and buzzing from before had stopped all together. I looked up and across the field, staring into the trees and I saw something move. It was big and black and had eyes that glowed red, standing out from the green of the woods. I didn't know what it was, but it scared the life out of me.

I stood up suddenly, dropping my notebook on the ground, but kept tight hold of my pen. I slowly started to slink forward, walking towards the forest as I hoped, _prayed, _that there was a logical explanation for why there was a big black thing with scary red eyes in the woods surrounding my school soccer field.

I nearly screamed when it emerged. It was a dog, a huge black one about four or five times the size of a Great Dane, and it was walking slowly towards me. I stood, paralyzed with fear, listening to its low, throaty growl, when I heard the door to the soccer field open and slam shut.

"Sofia!" a voice screamed from behind me. I turned to see who it was, but didn't get a chance to look, as the dog came barreling towards me at a very audible pace. I spun around, screamed, and raised both of my hands in a lame attempt to shield myself from the monster. As it neared me, it jumped, I guess so it would land on me, but I ducked, and it went flying over my head.

It fell on the ground in front of me, rolled over, shook itself off and came charging again. This time, I was ready. Red ballpoint pen in hand, I swung at the monster, jabbing the pointed end into its shoulder. It barely pierced the skin, but shocked it enough that it hesitated for a moment.

I pulled the pen out of its shoulder and poked it in its left eye as hard as I could. It reared up, walked forward on its back legs a few steps, and fell back down, right on top of me. As I fell to the ground, I heard a loud roar and a faint _poof_ noise. When I opened my eyes, the monster was gone, replaced by a boy that looked oddly familiar. I was in too much pain for who he was to register in my mind.

I looked down at my arm and found that it was completely shattered, bent back into a position no healthy arm should make, and gushing blood from a large cut that ran down the entirety of my bicep, revealing part of the broken bone.

I screamed in pain and felt myself go light headed, my grip on consciousness beginning to slip. The boy above me picked me up, one hand under my knees, the other supporting my back, and closed his eyes, and suddenly, everything was dark.

And in that black abyss, clinging to a boy I didn't know, my arm hanging limp by my side, I passed out.

**AN: Not so sure I like it. I tried to write this as best I could, but it didn't quite work out. Tell me what you think…**

**Maggie :P **


	3. Vanilla Frosting

I can say with confidence that I was half asleep when the headache started. Drowsy and unable to open my eyes, I lay in a bed that felt foreign and uncomfortable, though it didn't register to me that it wasn't mine at that point in time. My face felt hot and sweaty as I fought to remember what had happened to me. I remembered a pair of dark, red eyes, and a low, threatening growl, but passed those memories off as dreams. Part of my mind was still asleep, and producing all kinds of weird thoughts.

_Why does my head hurt so much? Am I hung over or something? I don't remember drinking any alcohol… God I'd kill for an Aspirin right now! _I thought as I lay there, slowly waking up. With each moment that passed, another part of my body was rendered moveable. First to wiggle were my fingers, though only on my right hand. Next to move were my toes, and soon to come, my ankles. Ten minutes later, I was able to open my eyes, but instantly shut them at the sharp burst of pain that followed the sharp burst of light. Determined, I cracked them open again, this time, ignoring the pounding in my head that followed.

With the ability to open my eyes came the ability to hear. I listened intently to my surroundings, hearing a conversation going on next to me as I stared at the ceiling, adjusting to the light. I was careful not to move my head as not to disturb their conversation.

"What is her name again, Katie?" a man with a deep voice asked.

"Sofia Lovett," I heard Katie reply. I stiffened as I heard my name.

"Pretty name. And she is how old?" the man asked.

"Fifteen," Katie said.

"Nico, tell me again about her encounter with the hellhound," the man said.

"It was hunting her, must have picked up on her scent, and charged her," a teenage boy said, a tinge of worry in his voice as he talked about me. "She was freaked out at first, but snapped into a fighting stance as it charged her. She stabbed it in the shoulder with a red ballpoint pen, and poked it hard into its eye before it fell on her. It totally snapped her left arm and was turning back to attack further but I killed it before it could," the boy, Nico, explained.

"I saw the whole thing and ran to help," Katie said after Nico had explained the incident. "Nico already had it killed when I reached her. I've known her a long time, Chiron, but I've never seen her that focused on anything before! It was like something snapped and she was instantly a demi-god."

"That is common, yes. Tell me, Katie, who do you think her parentage could be?" the man, Chiron, asked. _Godly parentage? What are they talking about? _I thought, terribly confused.

"Well she's very disorganized, absolutely despises any kind of preconceived plans, and seems amazingly at home in mess. She, for her entire life, has wanted to be a cosmologist because she loves the stars so much. She's clumsy, terrible at math, and has a tendency to make things jump of shelves when she has extreme bursts of emotions. She can't sing for her life, hates war, hates perfume, can't stand the ocean, is terrified of thunderstorms, thinks owls are creepy, kills all plants she touches, has the attention span of a goldfish, and frankly, I think she'd kill herself if she even stepped near an iron mill. To be honest, I have absolutely no idea," Katie said.

"You say she thrives in a chaotic environment?" Chiron asked, his voice thick with wonder.

"More so than anybody I've ever met. When around anything organized or set, the color drains from her face and she seems to be holding a great weight on her shoulders. But when she's around disorder and mess, the color instantly returns to her face and she seems taller and stronger, you know? She's not a slob, but she's definitely better in a disorganized environment," Katie said.

"My children, I think I've found her godly parentage. If my suspicions are correct, we have found the first child of Chaos in four hundred years," Chiron said.

"Chaos? Isn't she like, the creator of everything? The world and everybody living in it are children of Chaos," Nico said, confused.

"You are correct, Mr. di Angelo. She is quite a special child, if this is true," Chiron said.

I took this as my cue to wake up. I stretched out my working arm and sat up as slowly as possible, as not to upset my head. Once I was sitting upright, I let out a loud yawn, which got the attention of the three people sitting in the corner. They all rushed towards me.

The first thing that struck me as strange was that the girl I'd known as my best and only friend for my entire life was standing in front of me, and it instantly registered, that she was the Katie that had been talking about me with Chiron and Nico. Even half asleep, drowsy with pain, I was still struck with how stunning Katherine Anderson really was. She was everything I'd always wanted to be; blonde haired, blue eyed and freckle free, Katie walked the halls of Lincoln Community High like the Queen of Sheba, or Germany, or wherever the hell she was from. She was the best singer I knew, had a knack for knowing just how to treat pretty much anything wrong with me, and kicked my ass time and time again at the little rhyming game we played with each other. I'd always thought I knew everything about Katie, but now, she was staring at me in a place I'd never been, with eyes that knew so much more than I did, and it registered that maybe, she wasn't the person I'd always thought she was.

Once I was over the initial shock of finding myself and my best friend in a place that reminded me of the Hogwarts infirmary, I was smacked in the face with yet another thing I had once dubbed impossible. Standing next to Katie, was a centaur. He stood eight feet tall, towering above my friend, making her stunning five foot eight look like nothing in his shadow. I had to double, triple, _quadruple _take before finally realizing that, yes, there was in fact a centaur standing in front of me. When it registered, I had to shove my fist in my mouth to keep from screaming. His face, though young and observant, looked ancient and wise, like he knew all there was to know. He looked at me with an expression that was interested and engaged, like he knew me already. It scared me.

The third and final blow to my already pounding head, was the boy standing on the other side of the centaur. He had shaggy black hair, olive skin, and those eyes that pained me to look into because I knew they could hold me there forever if I did. His face was supporting an expression of sheer wonder as he stared at my confused self, like he was expecting something great of me. He was the boy I ran into in the hallway, the boy that saved me from the hellhound, and the boy who had brought me here to fix my arm. _Nico, _nice to put a name to the face.

"Sofia? Are you okay?" Katie asked, walking up to me and putting a hand on my shoulder. Her eyes flitted to my left arm before looking back up at my face. I looked down at my arm and realized for the first time that it was in a cloth sling. It had somehow been bent back into place, repaired, and put in a cast without my knowing. Whoever was the doctor there was brilliant, that's for sure.

"Where am I?" I asked, dazed and confused. Part of my mind was still in dream land, or so it felt at the time. I was seeing centaurs and hearing talk about gods, what else could I think?

"You're at Camp Half-Blood, sweetie, and you need to trust me, okay? You know I'd never hurt you, right?" Katie said, putting both hands on my shoulders and staring into my eyes. I nodded hesitantly. "Then you don't need to ask too many questions. Once you're all better, we'll explain everything, I promise, okay?"

"Why am I here? Who are you people?" I asked, my voice raising a few octaves, looking at Chiron and Nico, who were both watching me and Katie.

"I told you, Sofie, I'll explain it all later. Right now, you need to get better, okay? That's all you need to worry about. I'm here, you're safe, and you need to get better," Katie said in a sweet tone I'd never heard her use before. She sounded like a mother talking to her child. Mother… Mother… _Mother! _

"Where's my mom?" I asked, ignoring Katie's last request to ask no more questions. "Is she okay?"

"I promise you, Sofie, nothing is wrong with your mom. Everything is fine, now you need to be getting some rest," she said, stroking my dark hair gently in an attempt to calm me down. I knocked her hand away.

"You're not telling me something," I said, now fully awake. My headache was still pounding, and my arm felt as if it had been impaled several times with a carving knife, but my logic was clear as day. "What's all this talk about gods, and my parents, and why are you half horse?" I asked exasperatedly, turning to Chiron.

He put his hand on Katie's shoulder. "I think we should tell her. Do you agree Nico?" Chiron said, turning to the boy next to him, who was now thinking intently.

"I agree with Chiron," he said after a moment or so. Katie sighed.

"Sofia, you have to promise me something right here, alright? No matter what we tell you, you have to believe everything," Katie said, sitting next to me on the bed and turning her body to look at me. I did the same to look at her.

"Everything?" I said. "There's a lot, is there?"

"You have no idea, kiddo," she said, sighing and looking out the window for a moment before moving her gaze back to me.

"I promise to believe every word you say," I said, holding my hand out to her. She shook it and pulled me in for a hug.

"And you have to forgive me for not telling you sooner," she whispered in my ear as she hugged me. My mind was racing as she pulled back, both her hands on my shoulders. I nodded quickly. She dropped her hands from my shoulders and into her lap.

"Where to begin, where to begin," she said, thinking aloud. "Well, I think I should start by saying that you are not all human. One of your parents, which one, we don't know yet, is a Greek god." My mouth fell open.

"What?"

"Greek god. All those myths about the gods, well, they're real. And you are the offspring of one of the characters," Katie said, looking cautiously up at me from where her gaze had been on her hands.

"Like Zeus and Hera and Aphrodite?" I asked, just to be sure I was on the same page. Katie nodded.

"All the kids at this camp, you, me, and Nico included, are all children of the gods. We have one god parent and one human parent," she said.

"And yours is?"

"Apollo," she said quietly.

"Like, the god of music and medicine and poems and the sun and stuff?" I asked.

"Yeah. That's him," she said. "Are you mad?"

I thought about that for a second. "No, I'm not mad. It actually makes quite a lot of sense, when you think about it." Katie let out a long, pent up breath as some of the initial worry left her face. "Who's child is Nico then?" I asked, testing out the waters. It still seemed weird saying that the Greek gods existed aloud.

"Hades," I heard Nico say. I looked over at him. He was lying on a bed with a fashion magazine in his hands in instantly recognized as one of the regulars that Katie reads. "Honestly, Kate, how do you read this crap?" he said, turning the page and looking at it disapprovingly.

Katie rolled her eyes and turned back to me. "He's inherited his father's stubbornness, that's for sure. He refuses to accept that I'm entitled to my _own opinion," _Katie said, stressing the last two words so Nico would hear. I saw him roll his eyes as he turned the page again.

"This is all so insane," I said, my good hand moving to rub my right temple as best I could. It didn't help the headache. "So who's child am I?" I asked. "I heard you guys mention Chaos before."

"We're not entirely sure until someone claims you. Once they do, we'll know, but until then, you're going to have to wait and see," Katie said.

"That's going to be interesting," I mumbled, looking down at my feet. That was when I noticed I was wearing different clothes. My jean shorts and yellow tank top from earlier had been replaced by dark blue skinny jeans and an orange tee shirt that said _Camp Half-Blood _on it in big black letters. My converse were still on though, looking dirty and worn as ever, and now, splattered with blood stains.

I looked at Katie and noticed she was wearing the same shirt, but with a denim skirt. She had the bottom of the orange shirt tied tight around her waist with a black hair tie on her side that must have been originally for her hair, because it was flowing long and free over her shoulders as she sat in front of me, which was a nice change from her ever present ponytail she wore to school.

Nico, on the other hand, was not wearing a camp tee shirt. He was wearing the clothes he had been before, but now in a black tee shirt instead of a red one. I just had to ask, didn't I? "Why isn't Nico wearing a camp shirt?" I blurted before I could stop myself.

I saw Nico smirk slightly before answering, "It's my body, I can wear whatever I want. I'm my own figure of authority, not an ancient centaur or wine sodden minor god."

"Beautifully put," Chiron said from across the room as he watched us.

"Thanks Mr. C," Nico said, not looking up from the magazine he was still reading.

"So when will I know who's my god parent? When will they claim me?" I asked.

"There's no way of telling," Katie said. "But it'll be soon. Until then, you have to stay in the Hermes cabin."

I heard a single "Ha!" come from Nico in the corner.

Katie rolled her eyes again. "Oh, and a word of advice, don't listen to anything the Stoll brothers say, okay?"

"Why?" I asked.

"Because on my first day here, they filled my bed with worms. They're master tricksters, they're dad's the god of mischief," Katie explained.

"Do I have to stay in their cabin?" I asked hesitantly.

"Yeah, Chiron, does she have to stay in their cabin?" Katie asked.

"I'm sure that, for her first night, the gods won't mind if Sofia sleeps in the Apollo cabin," Chiron said, smiling warmly at me and Katie.

"Great. Come on, let me give you a tour of the camp," Katie said, standing up. I stood up behind her and followed her to the door.

"Coming Nico?" Katie asked.

"No, actually. I've got to deal with some crap in the Underworld, so I'll be back in a bit," he said, putting the magazine down and handing me a glass full of honey colored liquid. "Drink some of this on your way around camp. It'll help the arm."

"Will it? What is it?" I asked, studying it suspiciously.

"Ambrosia nectar. Food of the gods. It'll help heal you," Katie explained. "Try some, it tastes amazing."

I took a sip, pleasantly surprised when I found it tasted of Pillsbury vanilla frosting. "This is amazing! Like frosting!"

"Really? To me, it tastes like peppermint patties," Katie said.

"I taste black licorice," Nico said, picking up a dagger I assumed was his off of a counter and putting it in the holster on his belt.

"Why does everybody taste something different?" I asked.

"It tastes like your favorite thing to eat. Yours, as I already knew, was vanilla frosting," Katie said. "Finish that and have no more, okay? You'll die."

I extened my arm, pushing the Ambrosia away from me and looking at it cautiously. "Die? That's a bit grim, don't you think?"

"That's just the beginning," I heard Katie mumble under her breath. "Don't worry. It'll help your arm and your headache."

"If you insist..." I hesitantly took another sip, sighed at the wonderful taste, and followed Katie out of the doors and into the bright light.

All in all, it had been quite an eventful day, so to speak, and little did I know, it had yet to be over.

…

**AN: Now that chapter I'm actually proud of! Hope I did an okay job of easing Sofia into the whole world of the gods… if you see anything you'd change or add puh-lease let me know… and if you liked it, go on and tell me so! It makes my day… :P**

**Fixed for AnonymousTyper... thank you!**

**Love you all! **

**Maggie**


	4. Rottweilers and Acid

The sunlight was blinding. My head instantly started pounding, and it must have been pretty obvious on my face because Katie shoved the straw in the Ambrosia back in my mouth and forced me to drink some. The pounding in my head seemed to calm at the sweet taste of the liquid, but stayed screaming until I finished the rest of the drink. It didn't help too much, but at least I could open my eyes all the way.

"Follow me," Katie said, walking in front of me. She waved to some kids outside some cabins as we walked away from the place I'd woken up in. "That place you were asleep in, that's the Big House. It's where Chiron and Mr. D stay. If you're hurt or in trouble, the Big House will be there to save the day."

"Okay…" I trailed off, looking back at the Big House.

"These are the cabins, one for each of the major gods, and a great deal for the minor gods," Katie explained. "This cabin right here is the Demeter cabin," Katie said after we walked passed it. It was a light shade of spring green and was surrounded by gorgeous flowers that seemed to grow before my eyes. _Demeter,_ it said in elegant script over the door. The next was a shimmering blue and had a trident over the door. _Poseidon, _was written under it in shells. Outside the Poseidon cabin was sitting a boy, nineteen or so, leaning against the doorway and sharpening a sword with a stone.

I had to double take before the sword in his hand actually registered in my head as a sword and not some joke my subconscious was playing on me. This whole place seemed like a dream, but unfortunately, it wasn't, and even in my semi-dazed state, I knew that.

"Hey Percy," Katie said once we were in earshot. He looked up from his sword and at us. He had black hair, sea green eyes, and a kind face.

"Hey Katie," Percy said, getting up and walking towards us. He looked at me for a second before holding out his hand. "Percy Jackson, son of Poseidon," he said as I shook his hand hesitantly.

"Sofia Lovett," I said, looking at him confusedly. "Poseidon, huh?" I asked. I was having a hard time taking everybody here seriously.

"Yeah," he said, taking a pen cap out of his pocket. He placed it on the tip of his sword and it instantly changed into a pen.

My mouth dropped open and my eyes widened as I pointed lamely at the pen in an attempt to say something along the lines of "What the hell was that?" Unfortunately, my ability to speech wasn't so good at that point in time to begin with, and suddenly seeing a sword change into a pen didn't help my condition at all.

Percy laughed slightly once he realized what I was pointing at. He put the pen in his pocket and explained, "It does that. Riptide, it's called. Pretty awesome, if I may say so myself."

I nodded, completely dumbfounded. He laughed again.

"She's new here, isn't she?" he asked Katie. She had her hand over her eyes at this point, finger and thumb on her temples. She nodded. "Well, if you need anything while you're here, don't be afraid to let me know, okay?" Percy said, looking back at me.

"T-thanks," I stammered.

"Okay. We'll get going. Come on Sofie," Katie said, rolling her eyes and pulling me by the arm to follow her when my feet wouldn't move.

We passed Zeus's cabin next, looking terribly neglected. "Thalia, the only child of Zeus alive right now, is one of Artemis's huntresses. Needless to say, she doesn't visit a lot," Katie explained. Having worm myself asking so many questions about each of the cabins already, I settled on just nodding along each time she told me something.

When we passed the Hades cabin, Katie rolled her eyes as she spotted Nico asleep underneath the tree in front of his cabin. He obviously didn't plan to fall asleep; he was in what can only be described as a crumpled heap on the ground beneath a Maple tree. His head was leaning back against its trunk and he had one arm on the ground next to him, the other draped across his stomach, still holding his black sword limply in his hand. He looked absolutely exhausted, like he had passed out in the middle of doing something important, which was odd considering he had been wide awake only half an hour before.

Katie must have noticed my confused expression. "It's all the Shadow Travel. That's how he got to Houston and brought you and me back."

"Shadow Travel?"

"He can jump from any shadow anywhere in the world into another shadow anywhere else. It's quick, simple, but has its drawbacks. It makes him very tired afterward, especially after two consecutive trips, and if he has others with him," Katie explained.

"So why was he fine half an hour ago if it's so exhausting?" I asked.

"Because it doesn't have immediate effects on him. It did when he was little, according to Percy. Apparently, he used to pass out as soon as he got to where he needed to be when he was ten. Now, it takes a little while to kick in, how long exactly differs each time, but when it does, he's out for a few hours at least," Katie said. There was something in her voice that made it obvious that she really didn't like Nico.

We continued to walk. "You spend a lot of time with him?" I asked.

"Unfortunately, yes," Katie said. "Nico, being one of the most powerful demi-gods at the camp, is sent on trips to random parts of the world often to help other demi-gods get out of whatever mess they find themselves in. That was why he was there to save you from the hellhound."

It seemed that at the mention of the hellhound from the day before, the Ambrosia kicked in.

"Wait, what?" I stopped and grabbed Katie's arm, turning her to look at me. "How did he know I was being tracked by a hellhound?" Katie started to formulate a response but I cut her off. "Better yet, how did _you _know I was being tracked by a hellhound?"

"You see, I've known you were a demi-god for a long time, Sofia," Katie said. I motioned for her to carry on. "Every summer, I come to the camp, like all other campers, and I was told that when the scouts were out looking for demi-gods, you were found. You were young, _we_ were young, Sofie, so instead of bringing you back here, they sent me to take care of you. I could give reports on how you were doing, monsters that were chasing you, and if anything came up, Nico would come and take care of it." The look of sheer betrayal must have been clear in my expression because Katie carried on. "I wanted to tell you, Sofie, I really did, but I couldn't! Chiron and Nico wouldn't let me!"

"So you were never really my friend? You were assigned to me?" I asked, a large lump raising in my throat.

"Originally, yes, but you have to understand! You're the best friend I've ever had!" Katie said, taking my hand in hers as she pleaded with me. "I was assigned to you, yes, but then you became much more than an assignment to me! You're my best friend, Sofia!"

"Does this happen a lot?" I asked, trying to make sense of this all.

"Yeah! You remember Percy? The same thing happened with him and his friend Grover. He's a satyr. They're still best friends, even after Percy found out about how he was originally just an assignment," Katie said.

"Hold on, I'm confused," I said, letting go of Katie's hand. "Nico knows me too?"

"Yeah. Well, he didn't know you personally until today, but he's seen you before," Katie said, thrown off track by my random question.

"This is all so confusing!" I cried aloud, throwing my hands into the air. "First, I get attacked by some huge-ass black dog, then some kid I don't know picks me up and takes me to some place I've never seen before, and you're there, and there's a dude who's half horse, and I'm half god, and there are Pegasi and swords and armor and deadly drinks and _I just want to go home!" _I sobbed, dropping to the ground and curling up in a ball, crying into my knees.

What happened next, nobody was prepared for. As suddenly as if someone had flicked it on with a light switch, all hell broke loose. The noise made me look up. I wiped the tears from my eyes and was scared shitless at what I saw. Spears started dropping from hooks, radios started flipping channels, people started screaming and panicking, making it all worse.

It got louder as I realized it more and more. Within thirty seconds, the whole camp was in terrible shape. Water splashed up from the pond and smacked people in the backs of their heads; people were yelling and screaming; branches fell from trees and smacked into sandcastles little kids were making on the beach; satyrs were losing control of their reed pipes; it was completely chaotic.

To be honest, the sudden outburst of chaos utterly frightened me, provoking more tears. By this point, Nico had woken up, and was running towards me and Katie. Katie was looking at him with a dumbfounded expression and screaming to him over the noise. Whatever it was she was trying to tell him was lost in the chaos as soon as it left her lips, as was anything Nico tried to shout back.

The more scared I became at the psychotic outbursts around me, the worse they got. Even children of the more level headed gods- Demeter and Hephaestus- were on a complete rampage; possessed, so it seemed. The children of Aphrodite actually stopped staring at themselves in their mirrors and started taking part in the action as the children of Athena traded their books for the chaos. Nobody seemed to have any control over anything they did, even Katie and Nico, who were taking part in a very heated argument about goodness knows what while I was sobbing with fear.

The only one that seemed to be able to control himself was Chiron, who ran over to me when the chaos seemed to reach its peak. I couldn't hear him over the noise, and he knew that. He didn't speak, but simply bent down and laid a hand on my shoulder.

I looked up at him, my vision clouded with tears, and saw him mouth the words "_Stay calm". _I took in a shuddering breath and nodded.

"_Stay calm," _I mouthed back, nodding over and over again to myself as I desperately tried to calm down. I thought of kittens, ice cream sundaes, peace signs and hearts, but kept on getting distracted by the noise. Every bang, crack, and scream put me more on edge, scaring me more, provoking more chaos.

Chiron turned to the man standing in the doorway of the Big House, looking disinterested, and mouthed something. The man, Mr. D, I'm guessing, disappeared back inside the Big House, returning a minute later with a bottle that he brought down to me. He gave it to Chiron and walked back up to the Big House.

Chiron turned back to me and gave me the bottle, motioning with his hands that I should drink it. When I refused to drink it, too busy crying my eyes out, he opened my mouth for me and poured the liquid down my throat until it was all gone. It tasted faintly like pickles, sour and unpleasant, so I gagged once I had swallowed it all. Mid gag, however, I began to feel drowsy.

It was suddenly very quiet around the camp and I, again dazed and confused, passed out for the second time in two days.

…

"Well this seems to be quite a running theme, don't you think?" I heard a voice, warped and distant, say above me as I slowly came to.

"Seems so," a voice, this one deeper, replied.

"Is she waking up?" the first voice asked.

"I sure as Hades hope she is," a third voice said. "All this sleep can't be good for her."

I stirred, tried to stretch out my arms, and yelped when my broken left arm screamed in protest.

"Yep, she's waking up," the female voice said, one I now recognized as Katie's.

"Hm? What happened?" I asked, slurring my words together a bit as I tried to get my mouth to cooperate with me. My good hand flew to my head, which was pounding again.

"You had an emotional break down and started causing all kinds of things to go wrong," Katie said, passing me a glass full of Ambrosia nectar. I sipped at it as best I could without choking; I was having a hard time remembering to swallow

"How bad was it?" I asked. I'd made things happen like this before, normally just pots on the opposite sides of rooms jumping off of shelves when I got a bad grade on a test or something, but nothing ever that severe. I couldn't remember exactly what had happened, or how they had cleaned up the mess. The pickle-potion Chiron had given me did a good job at messing with memories I had of the experience.

"Do you want the good news first or the bad news first?" Nico asked. He was sitting on the bed next to me, looking half asleep himself.

"Um, the bad news, please," I said, crossing my fingers and hoping it wasn't that bad.

"Well, first off, you've completely ruined the entire camp. Nothing the kids of Hephaestus can't fix in a day or two though," Nico said. "The Apollo kids have their work cut out for them, thanks to your flying spears, which didn't half poke some of the campers here. You've also put Percy and the Demeter kids to work trying to get the water and branches out of camp."

"That bad, huh?"

"Pretty much," Nico mumbled, draping his arm over his eyes to block out the light. I forgot I had woken him up from his recovery nap earlier, and it seems the lack of sleep was catching up to him.

"What's the good news?" I asked Katie this time, deciding to let Nico sleep.

"You've been claimed," Katie said, a proud smile creeping out across her face.

"I have? No way!" I sat completely upright, ignoring the screaming pain behind my eyes and the head rush that followed. "Who's child am I?" Oddly enough, asking this seemed so much more real after my little… breakdown, of sorts. What had once been impossible was now becoming more realistic as I had proven to myself, really, that all of this talk of gods and powers was all true.

"Chaos," Katie said. "She claimed you after everything calmed down and all the campers were staring at you sleeping."

"So that means…?"

"You're officially a demi-god! Yay for you! Now can you two please leave so I can sleep?" Nico whined from next to us.

"You have a cabin all to yourself don't you? Go there and leave us in peace," Katie snapped back.

"I don't wanna go!" Nico moaned like a child. "I can't feel my legs, I'm that tired."

"Good for you." Katie rolled her eyes and turned back to me.

"So where will I be sleeping tonight, then?" I asked. "Not in your cabin, I guess."

"You'll be in your own cabin. Chaos's cabin. It's number 39," Katie said. "It's red and says _Chaos _across the front in black letters. Can't miss it."

"I'll be alone?" I didn't like the idea of that so much.

"Not alone completely. You're still at a camp with hundreds of other kids, remember," Katie said. She saw my worried expression. "You'll be okay, I promise. Come on, let's go eat, and we'll go to the campfire tonight. That'll cheer you up! I'm singing your favorite song!"

"You are?" I asked, beginning to relax a bit more.

"Yeah! All the Apollo kids lead the campfire, it's fun," Katie said, smiling.

"It's pure torture," Nico mumbled, almost completely asleep.

"For an emotionless bastard like you, then yes. For people like us, people with feelings, it's enjoyable."

"Whatever you say…"

Katie ignored him and stood up, offering me a hand. I took it and got up off of the bed, the same one from earlier that day, and followed her out into the sunshine.

…

Picture a sweet, perfect, picture book summer camp with a glistening lake and pristine cabins all in a circle, with cute little kids running around, laughing and smiling like Barbie dolls with sticks shoved up their asses. Now take that camp, set it on fire, use acid to put out that fire, send a few spears through the cabins, set a starving Rottweiler on the kids, flood it once, flood it again, run over all structures still standing with an eighteen wheeler, throw some of the most unsuspecting campers into trees, plaster some random confused faces in the crowd, and you have Camp Half Blood after my panic attack.

Katie was pulling me through the wreckage by the hand with such force my arm nearly popped out of its socket. I had to run to keep up with her, desperately trying not to cause more damage to the fragile camp as I stumbled through the camp. The crowd of shocked campers that was clustering around us parted like the Red Sea as we passed, hastily trying to get as far away from me as possible.

I tried not to look at the wreckage, hoping for dear life that I wouldn't have another emotional breakdown, but no matter how hard I tried, I just kept looking up. Tears started to form in my eyes as I watched people desperately trying to fix what I had broken in a matter of seconds. Everyone looked at me disapprovingly as I walked by them, slowly poking holes in my ego that really didn't need to be there.

Katie had, without my realizing it, pulled me to a bright yellow cabin with _Apollo _written across the front. She tugged me inside, threw me down on the first bed in the room, and waltzed over to a large wardrobe in the corner. I opened my mouth to protest, but was cut off by a ball of cloth hitting my face. It fell into my hands and I noticed that it was a pair of black skinny jeans. Again, my questions were cut off by clothing smacking me in the face, and this time, it was a pair of orange socks.

"Put them on. The campfire is starting soon and I can't have you walking into a crowd of people you just massacred looking like you'd been massacred with them," she said, walking over to a mirror near her bed and fixing her long blonde hair. I sat there confused. "Go on! The bathroom is right there."

"Um… okay…" I'd learned not to question Katie when she was giving me orders years ago, and I guessed now wouldn't be the best time to break that trend, so I obeyed, and walked into the bathroom.

What I saw in the mirror almost made me scream. My hair was a disaster, greatly resembling that of a person who had just stuck her finger in a light socket; my normally pale skin was, if possible, even paler, making my light dusting of freckles across my nose stand out; and my eyes had dark purple bags under them. I changed into the skinny jeans Katie had lent me (thanking my lucky stars that we were the same size) and threw on the clean socks.

With a splash of water in the face, and some smoothing out of my hair, I looked presentable, so I walked out into the Apollo cabin, where I saw Katie sitting on her bed reading a book. Looking around the bright yellow cabin, I realized we were the only people there.

"Where is everybody?" I asked.

"Hm?" Katie looked up from her book and at me. "They're all out healing everybody you hurt with your… _piff_…" Katie was obviously trying to find a word.

"_Piff? _What's a _piff?" _I asked, looking at her with an expression that clearly read "_huh?" _

"I don't know. It's just the word I'm going to use every time you have a break down. It's better than _emotional breakdown _now, isn't it?" Katie said, returning to her book.

"I like it. So how's everybody cleaning up from my _piff?" _I asked, worried.

"Well, I think…" Katie was cut off by the Apollo door banging open and an angry Nico storming in.

"I've been evicted! From my own home! _Evicted!" _Nico said, throwing his arms up in the air in frustration.

Katie didn't look phased in the slightest at his news. She stared at him with the same blank, "_really?" _expression she gave everybody who pissed her off. I'm guessing she gave Nico this expression a lot because he rolled his eyes and continued.

"Percy got stuck in a tree earlier, right, and because he's one of the older kids at the camp, someone couldn't go up there and get him, he's too heavy, so the Ares kids had to chop down the tree to get him down! And guess where the tree fell? _On my cabin!" _

Katie and I both looked at each other and broke out into laughter, falling over ourselves as we tried desperately to catch our breath. Nico stood in the doorway, trying to pick his jaw up off the floor as he watched us.

"It's not funny!" he whined, which provoked more laughter.

"Yes… it is!" Katie gasped, still laughing.

"How would you feel if your cabin got knocked over, huh? You'd be pretty upset!"

"No, I'd just stay with Sofia," Katie said, starting to compose herself.

"But I have to stay with Percy! _Percy!" _Nico whined, throwing himself down on a bed that was next to Katie's. That, for some reason, made Katie laugh even harder.

"Why is staying with Percy a bad thing? He's nice," I said, confused. Percy seemed bearable enough, why Nico was upset about having to stay with him was quite beyond me.

"Percy is like my brother I never had and everything, but he's always so loved up with Annabeth. It's quite sickening," Nico said.

"Annabeth? Who's she?" I asked. "I didn't see her with Percy earlier."

"She's a really pretty, really tough, daughter of Athena that Percy is like, madly in love with. The two of them have been dating for a while, but the initial lovey-dovey summer fling romance is _still _there. It's terribly annoying," he said, burying his head in his hands and letting out a frustrated sigh.

"But staying in his cabin is bad because…? It's not like she sleeps there, right?" I asked. No answer. "_Right?"_

Nico sighed again and lay back on the bed. Katie had begun to sober up, so when Nico shot up, looked at me, looked at Katie, looked back at me, and looked back at Katie, she shot him a "_Don't even think about it" _look.

"What?" I asked at their unspoken conversation.

"Not going to happen, Zombie Boy," Katie sneered.

"Please?" Nico begged.

"No!" Katie yelled. "I have to deal with enough of you during the day! I don't want you staying in the same cabin as me!"

Nico rolled his eyes and turned to me. "What about you, Sofia? The Chaos cabin is pretty big, and Katie could sleep over, just to keep an eye on me." Katie let out a frustrated scream from behind Nico.

"You really don't want to stay in the Poseidon cabin, do you?" I asked.

"Nope."

"Well…" I really couldn't make up my mind. Between Katie's frantic attempts to get me to reconsider (a mixed up series of shaking-heads, hand signals, and mouthed explicatives) and Nico's surprisingly convincing puppy dog eyes, I was trapped, unable to make a decision.

"Great. So I'll be at your cabin at seven, okay?" Before I could open my mouth to protest, Nico was gone, out the front door to the Apollo cabin and walking down the path.

Once he was out of earshot, Katie shot up and threw her arms up in the air in frustration. "What the hell was that?" she cried. "Now I'm going to have to have a sleep over with the son of the devil! Nice going, Sofia!"

"I'm sorry! He threw himself at me! I was trapped!" I said back, starting to get pretty aggravated. Suddenly, a picture frame jumped off a shelf and dropped to the floor with a loud crash.

"Can you _please _try to control your emotions right now?" Katie sneered, walking over to pick up the smashed picture. I saw it was one of a small blonde girl and an older boy that greatly resembled her.

"Who's picture was that?" I asked.

"My little sister Amy's. Well, she's a half sister," Katie said, putting the picture back on the shelf, despite the shattered glass.

"How many siblings do you have in this cabin?" I asked.

Katie thought for a minute and replied, "Fifteen, all of different ages."

"Wow. That's… a lot," I said, suddenly realizing something. "I don't have any siblings I don't know about, do I?"

"Oh, no. That's why we were so surprised when we found out about you. Chaos hasn't had a child since the 1700's," Katie said, turning back to me.

"It still hasn't registered that my mom isn't my real mom," I said quietly, looking down at my feet. "Am I adopted or something?"

"Now isn't the time to go into that. To be perfectly honest with you, I have no idea, but you need to focus on more happy things." I didn't reply. Katie came up next to me and took my hands in hers. "Look at me," she said. I looked up at her with tear filled eyes. "All you need to know is that your family is here now, okay? You've told me tons of times you hated life in Texas. Now you get to start over."

"But am I going to like it here?" I asked. Katie chuckled.

"Trust me, Sof, you'll love it here," she said, wrapping me in a hug. I drew in a shuddering breath and nodded, hugging her back. We broke apart when a radio in the corner started blasting music, probably my doing. Katie turned it off, took my hand, and pulled me from the Apollo cabin.

**AN: Thanks to all you people who have stayed with me. I know I didn't update soon enough, and for that I am going to make no excuses because I know it was completely and utterly wrong of me, but know that this chapter was excessively hard to write, what with Shane's constant banter about how much better the book that she is reading is than my writing, and with a case of writers block capable of stumping JK Rowling. Just know that I love you all and, frankly, can't wait to get my next chapter posted. Looking forward to feedback! **

**Maggie **


	5. My Sleepover With the Son of the Devil

**AN: AAAAAH! I KNOW! AUTHORS NOTE IN THE BEGINNING OF A CHAPTER! IT'S CRAZY RIGHT? Hehe… I just wanted to say a little something to all those who have stuck with me through this process. I know setting up the story is quite boring, and I am terribly sorry that you had to deal with four chapters of background info, but it was necessary, right? If you people are anything like me, you'd be reading this story just for the romance in it (*looks down in shame* guilty as charged…), so as a reward to you for bearing with me, I give you the beginning of what I hope will be a long, happy relationship (*sob, sob* what the hell? I'm writing this story! Why am I crying?) between our favourite son of Hades and who I hope will soon be a favourite daughter of CHAOS! (I had a lot of sugar today, can't you tell?) I also hinted at a little romance between a certain daughter of Apollo and Mr. Connor Stoll... I love the Stoll Brothers, so I thought I'd set her up with one! You'll have to read to get the dirt! So read on, my friends, READ ON! **

**DISCLAIMER- I'm not Rick Riordan, in case you haven't figured that out yet. I mean, really? It's not rocket science. Sugar obsessed English teenager named Margaret does not equal multi millionaire author of New York Times Best Seller book series. I don't own PJO, never have, never will, but I do own all original characters, so stealing them from my greedy little claws would be illegal. ILLEGAL! **

**This chapter is dedicated to two very special reviewers- AnonymousTypster (for being freaking awesome :P) and SuperReaderToTheRescue (for also being so awesome you actually registered on the Richter Scale). Thank you guys! **

**Love you all! **

**Maggie**

…

_Are they purposely trying to make me feel like crap? _was the first thought that popped into my mind as Katie and I sat in the coliseum for the campfire. She seemed perfectly at home, fitting perfectly in with her fifteen siblings, each holding some form of musical instrument. They were all dressed in yellow, all blonde haired and blue eyed, all unbelievably gorgeous, and all amazingly talented.

Katie seemed to be able to play every instrument she touched. She went from strumming a guitar and singing the first few bars of _You've Got a Friend in Me _in her ever stunning voice, to sitting down at jembe and drumming out a series of intricate, scarily perfect beats. Sure, I'd always known she was amazing at music, but this good? No way. I'd never seen her pick up a classical twelve string guitar and play like a professional, and yet, here she was, clear as day, scaring the crap out of me with her music.

Each of the cabins were displaying some form of their powers as they sat and waited for it to get just a little darker outside and the campfire to begin. The Demeter kids sat next to a tall tree, which they were quickly making grow all kinds of fruit above their heads. The Athena kids sat discussing politics and battle strategy, even the youngest of the children flaunting the ability to hold a conversation more intellectual than one found at Yale. Even the Aphrodite kids were using their inherited powers to mess with the emotions of unsuspecting campers across the stadium. I watched every demi-god use some sort of strength that only they had, powers that never failed to blow my mind, and what could I do? Screw things up? Gee thanks, mom.

About twenty minutes after sitting down with Katie, Percy and who I assumed was Annabeth joined us, taking their seats next to Katie and I. "Hey!" Katie said, hugging both Percy and the girl he was with. "How've you guys been?"

"Great!" the girl said. Nico wasn't kidding when he said she was pretty. Her long blonde hair and grey eyes put my brown hair and brown eyes to shame. "Who's this?" she asked, looking at me.

"This is Sofia. She's new here. She's a daughter of Chaos," Katie said.

"Nice to meet you, Sofia. I'm Annabeth," she said, holding out her arms. She wrapped me in a tight hug that stopped me from breathing for a second. When she let go, I couldn't help but laugh. "So you were the one who caused all the damage today?"

My heart sunk. Did everybody know it was me? "Yeah, I guess," I said, looking down at my feet.

"Don't be upset! I'm not saying that like it's a bad thing! Well, it is, but it proves that you're strong and that's what really matters," Annabeth said, smiling beautifully at me.

"Of course you would say that, Annabeth," Percy said. Annabeth giggled and kissed Percy sweetly on the lips. I looked at Katie, who simply nodded in an attempt to say _"Yes. This happens a lot." _

"Katie! You're on!" some Apollo kid called from behind her. Katie turned around, smiled, picked up her guitar, and ran down the steps and into the middle of the coliseum. She sat down on a stool by the fire, put the acoustic guitar on her lap, and spoke to the crowd.

"This one, our opener tonight, goes out to my best friend in the entire world, who, although managed to single-handedly ruin the entire camp, smash a picture of my baby sister, and get the both of us tied up in a sleepover with the son of the devil, still is my favourite person ever. Enjoy!"

The first thing I heard was a simple guitar part that soon ventured out into a simple, repetitive chord sequence I didn't recognise at first. Only when Katie's clear, beautiful voice sang the first verse did I realize what she was singing; _Throw away the radio suitcase, that keeps you awake. Hide the telephone, the telephone, telephone, in case. _

The smile that broke out across my face shined a million watts. She was singing to me, clumsy old me, and no one else. She was showing me that, through all we'd been through these last couple days, we were still best friends.

_Watching you scream quiet or loud, and maybe you should sleep. And maybe you just need a friend, as clumsy as you've been… You will be safe in here…. _her perfect voice ended the song with a flourish, and as usual, it never failed to stun me.

When she was done, the entire crowd erupted into applause, the campfire glowing larger and brighter than ever. Katie looked out into the crowd and met my eyes, holding them there for a second as she smiled widely at me. "_I love you_," she mouthed as I grinned like the Cheshire Cat.

"_Love you too," _I mouthed back.

Some of her siblings continued the campfire with other songs, most of which were country themed, to welcome me to the camp. I'd almost forgotten about Texas all together since I'd been here, but, to my surprise, the reminder of home didn't upset me in the slightest. Sure, I missed my mom, and once I got settled, I'd have to ask her about this whole ordeal, but I was really beginning to love it at camp. Dare I say, I felt at home. Instead of feeling like I was intruding simply by opening my mouth, I felt like maybe, just maybe, I was accepted. I mean, once people got over me ruining everything they owned, it seemed they'd be my friends. Katie's song seemed to open their hearts a little to the fact that I wasn't a monster.

The rest of the campfire continued in a blur of songs, chants, and laughs, as me and Katie danced and sang like crazy people. All feelings of insecurity that I had before were gone as I danced with my best friend, talking happily with the Apollo kids, and when Annabeth and Percy occasionally stopped making out, they joined in the chatter as well.

Night fell quickly upon the camp, enclosing us in darkness. The campfire ended with a large finale of songs, short campfire ones that everybody joined in and sang. Afterwards, I found myself sitting on the pier, dangling my feet in the water, with who was apparently the "normal gang" for Katie to hang with; Annabeth, Percy, the Stoll Brothers, Katie Gardner (she and Katie were name buddies), Clarisse, Rachel, and a couple kids from the Apollo cabin. The roar of conversation behind us from the small crowd was one that could easily be considered hilarious.

"Did you see that nose dive! I mean, I've never seen a unicorn swim like that before!" a very animated Percy babbled to his bored looking girlfriend.

"I didn't. What a shame," Annabeth said, voice oozing with sarcasm as she stared out across the lake. Percy didn't seem to notice, and continued to babble about things she obviously didn't care much about.

I turned my attention to the Stoll Brothers. "Should I ask her out?" Connor Stoll asked his brother, Travis.

"Dude. You've known her for how many years? You shouldn't be this nervous!" Travis said back, giving his brother an incouraging punch on the arm.

And so the conversations went, each one different from the next, each one intriguing in its own, weird way.

Katie, who was sat next to me, wasn't listening to any conversations going on behind her. She was focused on a moving object across the lake. I squinted, focused, studied, but I just couldn't make out what she was staring at. All my effort was wasted as soon as I looked at Katie. The pure hatred in her eyes as she stared at the moving blob, just a tad darker than the background behind it, gave it away. Nico.

"What does he want?" I asked. Katie didn't move her eyes from Nico.

"He's snooping around the forests. Either he's caught sight of a monster, or he's trying to get someone's attention," she said, not even the slightest bit curious. She was too pissed off at the fact that he ruined her night out with his "interruption". Katie, needless to say, wasn't the most rational of people, and by simply catching her attention, Nico was being rude.

"Why would he be trying to get our attention?" I asked. Even if Katie wasn't, I was curious as to what he was doing snooping around the forests across the lake that nobody else seemed to venture into.

"I don't know," Katie said, death stare _still _locked on Nico. "But whatever it is can wait. I'm out with friends." She said this like her Friday night plans were so much more important than the possibility that Nico's life might be in danger. In her mind, they probably were.

"Hold on. What time is it?" I asked. Katie reached into her bag and pulled out her cell phone.

"Eight fifteen," she said. "And don't tell anybody I have this okay? They're bad."

"Um... you do realize that you're going to have to explain that to me, and crap! We're an hour late!" I stood up so quickly, I almost fell into the water below, catching myself on the railing at the last second.

Katie stood up and reached for her bag, flinging it over her shoulder. "Calm down! If he was really upset about us not being there, would he be sneaking around the woods or would he be here nagging us like the Nico we all know and hate?" Katie said, clearly not bothered about being late.

"I don't know what they've taught you at this camp, but I was raised with manners. So we will go and not upset Mr. Son of Hades further. Vamanos!" I said, motioning for her to follow.

"Not until I get to say goodbye to everybody," Katie replied, obviously trying to piss me off. The part of the railing I was holding onto broke off and toppled into the lake, almost taking me with it. Katie shrieked and grabbed hold of my arm to steady me.

"I think I did that," I said, shocked. "Better yet, I think _you _did that."

Katie thought for a second before replying, "Remind me not to contradict you in the future. Emotions and your powers do not mix well. Let's go."

I smiled triumphantly before walking behind her, letting her silhouette lead the way.

...

"He's not here..." Katie said from in front of me. I'd lost her repeatedly during our walk to my cabin. It was dark out there, and I had no idea where I was going. When I caught up to her, I found her standing outside what seemed to be a red cabin, and, after much squinting and trying to see around my dyslexia, I finally made out the word _Chaos _across the front.

"This is my cabin?" I asked, eyeing it suspiciously, as if it was going to grow legs and attack me. My actions were perfectly justified, as my logic was telling me to run for my life, and had been for the entirety of the time I had been at camp.

"Yes. It's not going to kill you, go on inside," Katie said, gesturing me inside. She let me walk in first, because it was my cabin, and flicked on a light switch once she walked inside. The door banged shut, the lights came on, and I gasped.

What I had anticipated to be a normal, summer camp type cabin, was a gorgeous room with walls like velvet and floors like silk. I kicked off my shoes, pulled off my socks, and let my feet walk across the smooth floors that glimmered like I'd never seen a before. The light from the single bulb in the centre of the room shined off of ever surface, coating all objects in the cabin with soft, yellow light.

In one corner stood a dresser, one that looked strangely familiar, and above it hung an oval shaped mirror. I walked up to the dresser and ran my hand over the top, desperately wracking my brain for where I'd seen this piece of furniture before. Then it hit me- the dark wood, the square drawers, the messy carving of _SL and KA _in the bottom left corner of the scratched and stained top- it was my dresser from home!

I ripped open the drawers and found them filled with my clothes, one drawer filled with tops, one with jeans, one with shorts, one with socks... I squealed in joy as I opened the top right drawer and found all of my valuables. Every necklace, bracelet, ring, or earring I'd ever owned, even the ones I'd lost, were in their own little jewellery boxes, polished and perfect.

On the top of the dresser were all the things I remember there being on top before I'd left, in the exact same positions as I had left them. On the far left side stood a bottle of pink nail polish remover, a tub of cotton balls, a nail file, and about ten different nail varnish bottles. The wood underneath my nail polish centre was stained many different colours from the varnish I had spilled over the years. Next to my nail supplies was the blue hairbrush my mother had bought be not two weeks ago, and twenty or so hair clips and ties. Next to that stood my makeup bag, not that I used it very much, and a coupon to CVS for lip gloss. On the far right was my green laptop, charging away, power supply plugged into an outlet in the wall.

Never before had I been so happy to see my ratty old dresser, the one I'd had since before I could remember, and had seemed of little importance to me for so many years. I spun around and looked at Katie with confused eyes. She smiled and laughed gently, as not to offend me, before answering my unspoken question.

"Chiron got Hermes to send it over for you, untouched. He knew you'd have a hard time just moving in, with nothing of yours to comfort you, so he asked if it could be sent," she said.

"Wow! That's great! I'll get to sleep in my own pyjamas tonight!" I squealed, grinning widely.

"You're the first camper he's ever done that for, you know? A child of Chaos is a big deal," Katie said, sitting down on the couch. That was when I stopped obsessing over my dresser and actually looked at the rest of the room. There was a bunk bed in one corner, a red couch on the opposite wall. The frame of the bunk bed was black, and only the top bunk had bed sheets on it.

"Why doesn't the bottom bunk have sheets on it?" I asked, tugging lightly on the red covers on the top bunk. Katie looked at the bottom bunk.

"I guess Chiron knew you weren't going to be sleeping on the bottom bunk. Maybe he thought you'd like to dress it yourself," Katie said.

"Do you want to put yellow covers on it?" I asked. Yellow was her favourite colour, and she'd probably be the only one who would be sleeping over in my cabin for a while, so she could have a bed to herself.

"Why not! I'll check through the Apollo linen closet and see if they have anything I can dress it with," Katie said, standing up. "They're bound to have extra yellow sheets."

"Okay." I was really to busy studying the black chandelier above my head to care. "Be back soon."

"I will. Get settled, I'll be back in a few minutes," Katie said, opening the screen door and pushing open the door. She walked out and left me alone in my cabin.

I walked into the bathroom, flicked on the light, and smiled at the red walls and black sink. Even the bath and the toilet were black, but somehow, the colour scheme wasn't depressing. Something about the light, the positioning of the windows, the shape of the bathroom, made it feel more bright than it should have, being a room entirely black and red.

I walked to the pedestal sink and looked at myself in the large square mirror. My face was flushed, my hair in desperate need of a wash, but other than that, I looked fine. I looked happy, something that shocked me more than finding my entire toiletries bag neatly in the medicine cabinet. I was miles away from home, heck, I didn't even know what state I was in, with no explanation to why I was suddenly supposed to be someone else's kid, and here I was, enjoying myself. The sheer thought made me grin like a madman. Muddled as I may be, I was happy, and that was all that mattered, right?

I picked up the toothbrush sitting in the silver cup on the side of the sink. It was mine alright, absolutely identical to the one at home, even down to the fraying bristles and nail marks in the handle. My favourite toothpaste was sitting on the edge of the sink as well, a brand new tube. I walked outside of the backroom and opened the linen closet next to the bathroom door, smiling at the towels, sheets, pillowcases, shampoos, conditioners, body washes, and other extra supplies that filled the shelves in abundance. They really knew how to take care of us, didn't they?

When Katie burst back through the front door, she was carrying a sheet, a pillow case, and a think blanket, all a bright shade of yellow. I walked up to her, helped her put the sheets on the bed, and absolutely failed at putting the pillow in the pillow case. She laughed, rolled her eyes playfully, and did it for me.

When her bed was done up, the room seemed a little more complete, like now it wasn't just about me, it had a little bit of my childhood in it. Surprisingly enough, the bright yellow of the bed sheets matched the room quite nicely. It didn't clash with the red or the black at all.

I walked to my dresser, pulled out a clean pair of pyjama shorts and a tank top, grabbed a towel from the linen closet, and walked into the bathroom. I stripped out of my clothes, took a much needed shower, grateful that Nico wasn't there yet. Once I was done, I dried myself, changed into my pyjamas, and threw my dirty clothes into the laundry basket by the bathroom door.

"Sofia? Where should I put my clothes for tomorrow?" Katie's voice rang through the room like a church bell. I opened the bathroom door and peeked my head out. She was sat on the bed wearing sweatpants and a tank top, her long blonde hair cascading beautifully down her back.

"You can put them in the linen closet, I guess. There's an empty shelf on the bottom that you can claim as yours," I said, walking out of the bathroom as I towelled my hair dry.

"Okay," she said, walking to the closet and putting her clothes, neat and folded, down on the shelf.

"Where's Nico?" I asked, sitting down on the couch and stepping into my flip flops. It was warm here, and extremely humid. Camp Half Blood must be somewhere in the east.

"I don't know. He could be anywhere," Katie said, shrugging her shoulders. She looked towards the boxes under the bottom bunk. "What's in them?" she asked.

"I'm not entirely sure," I said, walking over to them. I kneeled down, pulled them out, and saw that each box was labelled something different; _DVD's, CD's, Stuffed Animals, _and _Pictures _were written across the four boxes that were under there. I opened them up and found my entire DVD collection, CD collection, all my stuffed animals from when I was a kid, and four large photo albums inside of the boxes. Katie sat down next to me.

"Wow," she breathed, routing through the box of photos.

"Well there's your answer," I laughed, closing up the boxes and pushing them back under my bed. "Did you bring any magazines?" I asked.

"Seriously? How long have you known me?" Katie asked, putting on a face of mock hurt. She pulled four teen girl magazines from her huge purse. I sighed, grabbed the one with the least pink, and walked into the bathroom to brush my teeth, now, with something to read.

I had only just pulled the toothbrush from my mouth when I heard the door to my cabin bang open, a bag hit the floor, Katie scream in frustration, and a light chuckle as whoever walked in threw themselves down on my bed. Sighing, I ventured from my bathroom and into the main room to find Nico lying on my couch, hands behind his head, chuckling to himself.

"Sure, you can come in. Just be sure to wipe your feet before you go _laying on my couch_," I said sarcastically, smacking Nico on the arm with the magazine I was reading. He laughed and swatted my hand away before sitting up and looking at me.

"So, where am I sleeping?" he asked in his usual _I-own-this-place _way. His ever present confidence, although unmistakable and occasionally irritating, was never cocky, no matter how far he pushed it. It was an admirable quality, one that made you respect him and fear him at the same time.

"Um, I guess you can sleep on the couch. I only have two beds in here," I said, walking back into the bathroom and putting my toothbrush down on the side of the sink. When I returned to the main room, Nico was still lying on the couch and Katie was still shooting him a dirty look.

"Stop pulling that face, Katie, it'll get stuck like that," Nico joked, still staring at the ceiling.

"Screw you," Katie sneered. Normally, she was the one telling everybody to stop swearing. It was quite funny hearing such an insult come from her mouth. Nico seemed to pick up on that.

"Ooh! Have the Stoll Brothers rubbed off on you, miss Katherine?" Nico teased, stressing each syllable in her name. I felt like I was missing something.

"The Stoll Brothers have _not _rubbed off on me. I don't spend enough time with them to pick up their ways," Katie said back. Nico sat up and looked at Katie with a disbelieving expression.

"Come on! It's obvious you and Connor Stoll have something going on," Nico teased.

"Believe me. I do not have feelings for Connor Stoll," Katie sneered, leaning back against the leg of my bunk bed and crossing her arms.

"The bright red shade of your cheeks begs to differ," Nico laughed, smirking.

"Oh shut up! Who are you to go poking around in my love life?" Katie snapped.

"So you admit! You have a love life! When's the wedding, Katie?" Nico teased, pushing the topic a little further. Katie's cheeks grew an even deeper shade of red.

"I don't like him!"

"Whatever you say, love bird," Nico chuckled.

"I'm the one that should be asking the questions here," Katie said, placing her hands on her hips as she looked at Nico accusingly. "Where were you for the past two hours?"

"There was a stray ghost wandering around the forests. As King of the Ghosts, it's my job to keep them on course to the Underworld. I transported him down there soon enough," he replied very nonchalantly, as if this happened all the time. It probably did happen all the time, being the son of Hades and all.

"That's still no excuse," Katie said, refusing to forgive.

"Okay. So when you die and you get lost on your way to the Underworld, don't be upset when I'm not there to help you find your way," Nico said. Katie grumbled something under her breath, and I'm pretty sure it was something along the lines of "_Go jump off a bridge," _but I couldn't be entirely sure.

"Nice cabin you have here," Nico said after a few seconds silence.

"Thanks. I'm still getting used to it, but I like it so far," I replied.

"I'm glad. So, what's on the agenda for today, Sofia?" he asked. I noticed how Nico always called people their full name, straight up, as if he wasn't afraid to address them personally. I couldn't be sure whether I found it annoying, or appealing.

"Sleep, I guess. It's nine now, so we don't have to hit the sack until like eleven," I said, checking the clock on the dresser to be sure. "We can put on a movie until then if you'd like."

"Sounds good, just as long as isn't anything too girly," Nico said, shooting a look at Katie, who was already routing through my DVD collection box in the corner and eyeing The Notebook and The Last Song interestedly. She looked up at Nico, grimaced in defeat, and put the two movies back.

Eventually, after quite a lot of bickering between Nico and Katie, we decided on a movie, The Princess Bride. Nico wasn't too happy about it, but seemed to mind a whole lot less than when we posed the idea of Angus, Thongs, and Perfect Snogging to him.

I put the movie in my laptop, turned the speakers up all the way, and started the movie, sitting on the couch. I sat in the middle of Nico and Katie, trying my best to prevent all future fights between the two of them.

Katie and I had seen this movie so many times we'd lost count through the years, it was one of our favourites, so half way in, when I found myself starting to fall asleep, I didn't mind too much. I tried my best to stay awake, but I found the affects of stress and fatigue starting to catch up with me. Katie had already dozed off, and was resting her head on the back of the couch as she snoozed. Her slow breathing, the quiet chirping of the crickets in the distance, the familiar "_My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die," _coming from my laptop, and Nico's warm body, all combined into a lullaby that made me sleepier and sleepier by the second.

I yawned. "Tired, are we?" Nico asked, looking down at me and smiling a little. I nodded as best I could. "For all that time you spent in a coma, I'd think you'd be more awake."

"Guess not," I said, my words slurring together a little. "I don't think that counts as real sleep."

"It doesn't? Could have fooled me. You were sucking your thumb and everything," Nico said very matter-of-factly.

"I don't suck my thumb!" I defended, crossing my arms across my chest.

"It's better than drooling. That's the first thing Annabeth ever said to Percy; 'You drool in your sleep.'" I looked at him disbelievingly. Surely such a perfect relationship hadn't started to rudely. "I'm not kidding! He told me himself!"

"Wow. What was the first thing you said to me?" I asked, curious.

"I don't really remember. It wasn't as funny as 'You drool in your sleep,' I'm sure," he said, the wheels in his head turning. Nico thinking was quite interesting; his eyebrows drew together and he got a cute little crease on his forehead. "I'm pretty sure it was to tell you that I was a son of Hades."

"Was it? I don't remember." I could feel sleep forcing my eyelids down further, further, as I desperately tried to make sense in what I was saying.

I yawned loudly, and Nico looked at me. He smiled, and in the low light, he really did look half god. I smiled groggily, my eyes heavy. He stroked my hair and gently and whispered, "Sleep," to me. I nodded as best I could, rested my head on his shoulder, and there, in the arms of the son of the devil, I fell asleep.


	6. Replaced By Seventeen Magazine

**AN: Thanks to all those who helped me through my dilemma regarding the food in the Camp Half Blood cafeteria (for those who didn't see that post, I had no idea where the kids at Camp Half Blood got their food. I knew how they got their drinks and everything, but apparently the nymphs bring it to them). Thank you SuperReaderToTheRescue, Hell'sAngel'sQueen, and whoever posted a completely anonymous review without even putting a name in! This chapter wouldn't be anywhere near finished without you. **

**Happy Reading!**

**Maggie**

**...**

_Thump! _My head was throbbing before I could even react. Groggily, I lifted my hand to my head and when I pulled it away, I found it covered in blood.

"Crap!" I said loudly before I could stop myself. My eyes shot open all the way, and found myself lying on the floor, staring up at the ceiling. A dim light streamed through the windows of my cabin, illuminating the room just enough to be made out through my half asleep eyes. Other than the sound of my ragged breathing, it was silent. I hadn't woken anybody up, thank goodness.

Slowly, as not to upset my head, I sat up. How I'd wound up on the floor was quite beyond me. Last I remembered was sometime around three in the morning, when Nico untangled himself from my arms and lay me down on the couch, too sleepy to carry me up to my bed. Once I was laying down, head resting on one arm rest, he curled up the same way, resting his head on the other.

_I must have rolled out of bed, _I thought to myself. _Or rolled out of... couch... _

I looked at Nico. He was still asleep, curled up on his half of the couch, one arm across his eyes to block out any light, the other across his stomach. I turned my head the other way and found Katie sprawled out on her bed, both arms hanging off the sides, managing to take up the entire full sized mattress on her own.

I smirked, and ever so slowly, got myself up. Once I was standing, I walked to my dresser. The clock on my laptop told me it was six in the morning. Sighing, I knew I wasn't going to get back to sleep, so I pulled out a pair of denim shorts and a yellow and pink flowered tank top, and ventured into the bathroom.

I studied my cut in the mirror. I wasn't losing too much blood; any blood I had lost was on my hand or in my hair. Deciding that it might not be the best idea to walk around for the rest of the day with blood matted hair, I hopped in the shower. After washing my hair, I walked out of the shower and brushed it through, pleased when I saw no more blood dripping from the tiny cut on the side of my head. My hair stayed crazy looking though, despite my desperate brushing. I decided to leave it until it dried.

Once I was dressed, I cleaned my teeth, and walked back into the main room, pleased to see Katie and Nico still asleep. I ran my foot over the area where I fell, to see what had cut me, and jumped back when I felt a sharp pain. There was a nail sticking up from the floorboard. _Yep. That's it, _I thought as I studied the sharp piece of metal.

How was I going to get it out? I didn't have a hammer handy, now, did I? The closest thing I had to a hammer would be a hairbrush. I ran back into the bathroom, grabbed my brush, and instead of trying to yank it out of the floor, started beating it into the floor, so it wouldn't stick up anymore.

_Bang, bang, bang, _it went, but the nail wouldn't go in any further. I hit it harder. Nothing. However, something did come of my frantic beating. Nico and Katie both woke up.

"Sofia? Would you mind telling me what you're doing?" Katie asked once she saw me kneeling on the ground, dented hairbrush in hand, smashing a nail on the floor like my life depended on it.

"I'm trying to get this nail that's sticking up back into the ground," I replied slowly, trying not to make myself sound insane. It didn't work.

"So you're beating it with a hairbrush. At 6 in the morning," Katie said, as if she didn't quite understand.

"Pretty much," I said, lowering my hairbrush.

"And what possessed you to do that?" she asked.

"I fell off the couch and cut myself on it," I said.

"Wait, couch?" Katie asked. She looked over at Nico, who was lying, half awake on the couch, very obviously fighting the urge to go back to sleep.

"She fell asleep on my shoulder last night and I was too tired to bring her up to her bed," Nico mumbled, rubbing his eyes.

"You couldn't have woken her up, like you did to me?" Katie sneered.

"I didn't have the heart to. She had quite an interesting few days," Nico replied, standing up and shaking out his hair. "I'm gonna go shower in Percy's cabin. See you later."

"Don't hurry," Katie mumbled under her breath. Once Nico was gone, Katie turned to me. "Put the hairbrush to good use and actually brush your hair with it. You look like you have a haystack on your head."

I sighed and stood up, brushing my hair for real. "Get up on the wrong side of the bed this morning, Miss. Katherine?" I asked adopting Nico's nickname for her. I walked to the mirror over my dresser and began messing with my hair a little to get it to look presentable.

"My grumpiness could have something to do with the hour at which you decided to wake me up with your persistent smashing of a plastic hairbrush on a nail in the ground, only inches from my ear," Katie snapped, stretching out her arms.

"I'm sorry I woke you up so early. Now let it go," I snapped right back, turning from my reflection to face her. She, even half asleep and fuming with anger, still managed to look beautiful. How she got her hair to fall so perfectly around her face at every moment of the day was quite beyond me. Mine, despite frantic attempts to get it to look nice, still refused to cooperate with my pleading hands.

Katie walked up behind me, brushed my hands from my hair, and stared plaiting it, French braiding it perfectly, until it fell neatly down my back. My hair wasn't long, but it was long enough to make an impressive braid. She patted me softly on the head. "I'm going to go take a shower now. The towels are in the linen closet, right?"

"Yeah," I said, smiling at her in the mirror. She smiled back and walked into the bathroom, leaving me alone at the mirror. I'd only spent two minutes in silence when Katie called from the bathroom.

"Seriously, Sofia?" Katie walked back into the main room with her hair in a messy bun.

"What?" I asked, perplexed. What had I done wrong now?

"You've been in this cabin all of one day and it's already a mess!" she whined.

"What's wrong with it?" I asked, following her back into the bathroom.

"Have you seen the medicine cabinet?" She pulled open the medicine cabinet behind the mirror. It was a mess. Bottles and jars were everywhere; soap dripped from a bottle of face wash on the top shelf down onto the bottom shelf; random Aspirin tablets were scattered around the shelves; toothpaste was caked onto the sides of the cabinet; it was a complete mess. I liked it.

"What about it?" I asked, playing dumb.

Katie sighed. "I'll be in the shower. Go get breakfast, and bring me back a blueberry muffin, please."

"Will do," I said, grabbing my chap stick and iPod, shoving them in my pockets, and walking from my cabin. The first person I caught sight of was Nico, walking from Percy's cabin in clothes that looked a little bit too big for him, rubbing his damp hair with a bright blue towel. He took the towel off his head, saw me, and smiled, walking towards the cafeteria as well. We ended walking next to each other after a few minutes.

"Where's Katie?" he asked, draping the now soaking wet towel over his shoulder.

"Showering. She sent me to get her a blueberry muffin," I said, smiling. His hair was still soaking wet, but I didn't tell him that.

"Sounds like Katie," he said, smirking a little. "You know, on one of our quests, she made me get her a full English breakfast, eggs, bacon, sausage, toast, beans, everything, and bring it to her in bed."

"She did not!" I laughed. We were inside the cafeteria now, walking side by side towards our tables which were, interestingly, right next to each other.

"She did so! Have a seat," he said, pointing to the end of the bench at the small Chaos table, the seat right next to the Hades table. I sat down where he pointed and he sat down at the far end of his bench, as close to me as possible.

"So what do I do?" I asked. A few very tired looking campers were scattered around the tables, some picking at breakfasts, some chugging steaming mugs of coffee. I looked down at my empty plate in confusion.

"Ask a nymph," Nico said, waving one hand. A nervous looking woman flounced up to him. She had pointed ears and short hair, like a pixie, and couldn't have been over four foot five.

"Yes, Mr. di Angelo," she said in a quivering voice. What had Nico done to this poor nymph? "The usual?"

"Yes please. And get Sofia here two blueberry muffins toasted with butter," Nico said, looking mildly disinterested.

"Yes, Mr. di Angelo. Would Miss Lovette like jam with that?" she asked.

"Oh, no thank you," I said before Nico could interject. The nymph ran back behind the wall she had come from, leaving me and Nico alone. Kinda.

"Thirsty?" Nico asked, taking a sip from his glass. I hadn't seen the nymph fill it up.

"How... wait... what?" I was confused. Nico laughed.

"Just tell the glass to fill up with whatever you want it to," he said, tilting his goblet towards me to show me what was inside. Judging by the bright orange colour of it, it was orange juice.

"Um... hot chocolate, please?" I asked, unsure of what exactly I was supposed to do. As soon as the words left my lips, however, the goblet filled with steaming brown liquid that smelled wonderful. I took a sip. Hot cocoa, and darn good cocoa too.

The nymph returned with the two blueberry muffins a second later, placing them in front of me. She had, in her other hand, an apple Danish, which she handed to Nico on a silver plate.

"Danishes? They have Danishes?" I asked once the nymph was gone.

"Just for me. And whoever else wants them, of course. It was my idea though to get the Danishes in the cafeteria," he said, breaking off a piece of pastry and putting it in his mouth. I looked at my blueberry muffin, put the butter on it, and broke a piece off. Nico was watching me interestedly, as if expecting something. He sure did wear that expression a lot, didn't he?

"What?" I asked, piece of blueberry muffin only inches from my mouth.

"I want to see your expression when you eat your first Camp Half Blood blueberry muffin," Nico said simply.

"Why?" I asked, hesitant.

"You'll see. Eat," he said. I shrugged, and popped the piece in my mouth.

"Holy crap!" I said, eyes wide.

"I know!"

"This is like..."

"I know!"

"The best..."

"I know!"

"Oh my..." I was unable to finish a single sentence, while Nico's smile seemed to grow bigger and bigger every time I tried. Once my mouth was cleared from that first bite, a took another, and another, until the whole muffin was gone. Only once I'd cleared the taste from my mouth, sort of sad to do so, could I formulate a full sentence.

"Pretty darn good, right?" Nico asked, taking the last bite of his Danish.

"That's an understatement," I chuckled, looking longingly at Katie's blueberry muffin, sitting in a little brown bag, just waiting to be eaten. Nico saw me.

"If I were you, I wouldn't lay a finger on that muffin. Katie's pretty vicious," he said.

"You don't have to tell me. We're talking about the girl that nearly bit off my finger for a yellow crayon in the second grade," I laughed, standing up and grabbing the brown bag Katie's muffin was in. Nico stood up too.

"The Hephaestus kids fixed my cabin," he said as we walked from the dining hall.

"Did they? That was quick," I said.

"They're pretty awesome builders," he said. We were out in the light now, and, sure enough, across the clearing stood the black cabin with _Hades _scrawled across it in silver letters, tall and proud, not a single mark on it.

"I've got to get this muffin to Katie," I said, pointing in the direction of my cabin.

"I've got to make sure none of the Hermes kids tried to steal any of my stuff while my cabin was under construction," Nico growled, shooting a dirty look towards the Hermes cabin.

"I'll let you do that," I chuckled. "See you later?"

"Sure."

We both walked towards our cabins, waving goodbye to each other when we reached our doors.

When I walked into my cabin, I found Katie sitting on the couch, reading _Seventeen. _She was fully engrossed, so absorbed in whatever could be found in that disgrace of a magazine that she didn't notice me walk in until I shoved her blueberry muffin in her face. Even then, she only nodded in thanks and continued to read her magazine. I sighed and threw myself down on the couch next to her.

"I'm bored," I said after a few seconds of silence. She turned the page to her magazine, probably not hearing a thing.

"That's nice," she mumbled.

"Do you want to go swimming or something?" I asked. I thought I'd seen some kids swimming in the lake yesterday.

"I'm busy."

"Can you not be busy for ten minutes and get your confused best friend something to do?" I asked, starting to loose my patience.

She opened her mouth to say something, but whatever it was, was lost in the mess of thoughts running through her mind about lip gloss and celebrities.

"Katie, _please?" _I whined. Nothing.

"Five more minutes," she muttered like a tired kid on a Monday morning.

"Fine! I'll go do something with Nico then!" I snapped, standing up fiercely and walking out of the cabin.

I heard something crash and a loud "Ow!" come from inside my cabin, but I chose to ignore it. I walked, bored out of my mind, towards the now fixed Hades cabin and knocked on the door. Silence. I knocked again, using the same knock Katie always uses when she's pissed, a series of fast, flitting taps at the door that keep going until someone opens up. Sure enough, that got him to answer.

"What, Katie?" Nico whined, pulling the door open exasperatedly. He calmed down a bit though, when he caught sight of me, and his angered expression was quickly replaced by one of confusion. "Um, hey. Long time no see," he joked, leaning against the door and looking at me curiously.

"I'm bored. Katie's too busy reading _Seventeen _to do anything with me, and I hardly know anybody else here," I said, crossing my arms and looking at him with the same look that he was giving me.

"I can do something with you, sure," Nico said, standing up straight and opening the door wider to let me into his cabin. I walked in hesitantly, sitting down on his bed. The cabin was pretty awesome, everything was black but the little knickknacks that sat on his shelves. The walls were black too, but seemed to glint like stone; obsidian, it seemed.

"Stay here for a minute. I have to run and get something," Nico said, walking into the back room of his cabin. When he returned, he was wearing a different shirt, and he was putting his wallet in his back pocket.

"What do you normally do on sunny Saturday mornings?" I asked, staring up at the ceiling.

"I practice sword fighting a little, sometimes I go swimming, hang with the Stoll Brothers, and there's always a movie projected on the side of the Big House once it gets dark on Saturday nights, so I guess we can go," Nico said thoughtfully, running through his schedule in his mind.

"All are good by me," I said, glad nothing in that list had anything to do with magazines. "Where are we going first?"

"Has anybody attempted to teach you sword fighting yet?"

"Nope. I've been here for two days," I said simply, wondering what he was thinking about.

"It's about time you learned, then," he said, grabbing his sword from the table by his bed, and walking to the door.

"But I don't want to learn! It seems scary," I said, looking at the shiny black sword in his hand.

"It isn't as bad as it looks," he said, holding the door open for me. I sighed and got up, walking out of the door and into the sunlight.

"How long did it take you to learn how to fight?" I asked, following him. I had no idea where we were going.

"I didn't learn to fight by being taught it. I had to learn it to survive," he said, putting his sword in the holder around his waist.

"How?" I asked, curious.

"I spent a lot of time in the Labyrinth as a kid," he said, expression suddenly serious. "I hung around with some people I shouldn't have, ran into some problems that a ten year old shouldn't have been in, and had to learn through experience."

"So you're good then?" I asked.

"You can say that," he said, a small smile breaking his stern expression. He stopped walking at what appeared to be a sort of arena. It was bigger than the coliseum that the campfire was held in, and the in the centre of the arena were six large practicing dummies, looking as if they'd been impaled quite a lot.

"This is the sword fighting arena?" I asked, staring down at it.

"Yep. Come on," he said, walking down the set of stairs leading into the middle. There was nobody in the arena but us, probably because it was so early.

Nico walked to a large metal closet type thing in the wall of the arena and pulled open the doors, revealing shelf after shelf of swords and amour. Nico skipped right over the armour section and pulled out a bunch of swords.

He handed me one. It was gold, and very heavy. "How's that feel?" he asked.

"How am I supposed to know what's right or not?" I asked, confused.

"Does it sit right on your hand? Is it top heavy, the handle too big, too thick?" he asked, looking at me quizzically.

"Um... it's a bit heavy," I said hesitantly.

"Okay. Try this one," he said, handing me another. This one was paper thin, and light as a feather. The handle was tiny, and the gold blade glinted in the sunlight. I lifted it up to look closer, but it bounced out of my hand. Maybe a bit too light.

Nico took that one back and handed me another. This one, a black one, instantly fell to the ground. "The handle is too big on that one," I said, pointing to it like it was a bug.

"I think this one will be perfect," Nico said, handing me a fourth sword, this one silver. I took it and held it for a second, waiting for something to go wrong. Surprisingly, nothing did. It was perfect, the handle was comfortable, I liked it.

"This one's the one," I said, studying the silver blade in awe. It was gorgeous, catching the light around me and sending shimmering orbs of light everywhere.

Nico closed the cabinet and walked out into the middle of the arena, drawing his sword. "Okay so the first thing you need to..." I cut him off.

"Wait, we don't need armour?" I was getting kind of nervous.

"Armour's for wimps. I spent eighteen months trapped in a labyrinth, battling spirits powerful enough to put Zeus to shame, with no armour, and I'm perfectly fine," he said, pointing his sword at me. "Now, raise your sword... that's right."

"I'm scared I'm going to kill you," I said, my voice starting to shake.

Nico chuckled. "I can assure you, Sofia, nobody's going to die."

"Okay..." I raised my sword but it fell to the ground.

"When you drop your sword, don't pick it up by the sharp bit!" Nico said, starting to sense a pattern with me. It was too late to stop me, though. I reached down to pick it up but jumped back in pain. My hand was gushing blood. Nico walked up to me and took my hand in his, studying the cut. "Oh, that's deep. See? That's what you get when you try to pick up the sword on the end that doesn't have a handle."

Once we got my cut banged up, and Nico made sure I picked up the sword the right way, we continued. He taught me the basics of sword fighting, after knocking me to the ground a few times. My sword fighting technique was simple: swing the sword around aimlessly until you feel it hit something. But my crazy philosophy was no match for his amazing form, and I was beaten every time we battled it out.

"Okay. I guess I can't teach you form, it's too organized," he said, exasperated. I joined him in front of the weapons cabinet. He pulled it open again and kneeled down on the ground, pulling a silver bow off of the bottom shelf. He handed it to me, and grabbed the matching quiver of arrows.

I followed him back into the middle of the arena, took an arrow from the quiver, placed it on the bow, and looked at Nico confusedly.

"No. You're doing it all wrong. Firstly, it's a bow, not a hair dryer, so hold it like that, there you go," he said, walking up to me, and moving my elbows so I was holding the bow right.

"Like this?" I asked.

"Perfect. Okay, take the arrow like this, no, not like that, like this, that's it, and point it, by gods, girl, not at me!" Nico sighed. He wasn't getting anywhere with me.

"I'm sorry!" I cried, getting a little fed up myself.

"Just aim and shoot," Nico said. I did just that. And completely missed the target.

"That failed," I said, lowering the bow.

"We'll work on it," Nico said, picking up the quiver and walking back to the metal cabinet.

"What are you going to try next?" I asked.

"A dagger," he said, handing me a little silver knife. It was like a mini sword, but fit better in my hand. I liked it.

"It feels alright?" Nico asked, walking back into the middle of the arena.

"It feels much better than the bow and the sword," I answered truthfully.

"Good. Now," he said, taking out his sword. "Defend yourself. I'm not really going to hurt you, and please, try not to stab me, just protect yourself, okay?"

"Okay..."

Nico walked towards me, and swung his sword. I dodged it, ducking under the blade seconds before it would have hit my head. I dropped to the ground, and stayed there until Nico's blade passed over my head again. From there, I jumped and swung and did all I could to stay out of the way of Nico's sword. I could tell from the expression on his face that he was impressed.

Without the long, heavy sword to get in the way, I was quicker and more agile. The dagger, instead of fighting me like the sword and bow did, actually aided in my movements. The same move Nico tried to teach me using a sword, the one that resulted in me very nearly chopping off my leg, ended up winning me the fight when I put a dagger in my hand. It took a second, but when I realized I was standing above Nico, dagger pointed at his throat, I blushed bright red and let him get up.

"I think," he said, brushing himself off and looking at me with a surprised expression, "that we've found your weapon of choice!"

"I think so too!" I said, a grin breaking out across my face. "Can I keep the dagger?"

"I guess so. Nobody really uses the daggers," Nico said, putting his sword back in its holder.

"Where do I keep it?" I asked. Nico ran to the weapons cupboard and came back with a leather case. He handed it to me.

"Put this over the blade of the knife and close this clasp around the handle," he said, demonstrating with my dagger.

"Thanks," I said smiling.

...

"You beat Nico? How is that possible?" Travis Stoll exclaimed when he heard the news of the final fight between Nico and I in the arena. Nico and I were sitting on the back doorstep of the Hermes cabin, talking to the Stoll brothers and enjoying the weather and drinking Coca Colas.

"I have no idea!" I laughed, pulling my dagger from my pocket and taking it out of the case. "This was the knife, the very one, that beat the legendary Nico di Angelo."

Connor took the knife and studied it. "It's a pretty little thing, isn't it..."

"Connor, give it back," Nico said sternly. Connor sighed in defeat, knowing not to mess with Nico, and handed me back my dagger.

"How badly did she suck at sword fighting though?" Travis asked from his seat at their patio table. He took a swig of his soda and set it back down on the table.

"Hard. She nearly sliced off her hand," Nico said, pointing to my left hand, which was wrapped in bloodstained gauze.

"How'd you do that?" Connor asked.

"She dropped her sword and picked it up at the wrong end," Nico said, taking a sip of his Coke.

"Oooh... not nice," Travis chuckled.

"It still hurts," I said, wiggling my fingers back and forth a little.

"Get Katie to take a look at it or something," Travis suggested.

"CONNOR!" an unmistakable voice screamed through the Hermes cabin.

"Back here," Connor called out, face bright red. Katie pushed open the back door and walked out the cabin.

"Speak of the devil," Nico mumbled under his breath.

Katie caught sight of me, one hand heavily bandaged, drinking a Coke, with Nico and the Stoll Brothers, and put her hands on her hips, raising one perfectly sculpted eyebrow. "Really? This crowd? You couldn't do any better?"

"What? You were the one who wouldn't do anything with me! I was replaced by _Seventeen _magazine!" I protested, shrugging and taking a sip of my soda.

"I didn't replace you with _Seventeen _magazine," Katie said very matter-of-factly. She turned to Connor. "Where's that camera I lent you?" she asked.

"Well..." Connor opened his mouth to say what was very obviously going to be an excuse for having lost it or something when Katie gave him the _look. _The same look that she gives anybody who dares question her. A mixture of pure hatred, accusation, knowing arrogance, and superiority, nobody with the will to live wants to fall victim to Katie's _look. _

"Tell me the truth, Stoll," Katie said calmly, letting her eyes do most of the talking.

Connor sighed in defeat. "It's in my bed side table drawer," he said quietly, standing up and walking into his cabin, an angry looking Katie following behind. Katie winked at me as she passed, breaking her pissed off facade, but composed herself again as she disappeared inside the cabin.

"Damn good camera, that one too," Travis was mumbling under his breath, upset about having to give it back. He should have known better than to try and cheat Katie out of her stuff. Nico was watching the whole thing with an amused look on his face, obviously quite happy that Katie's anger wasn't directed at him for once.

"I should go check on them, make sure Katie's not killing Connor or anything," I said, setting my Coke down on the step and walking inside. What I found was quite the opposite. Katie was sitting on Connor's bed, smiling goofily at him, blushing a deeper shade of red than I'd ever seen on her before. In one hand was her camera, and in the other, was Connor's hand.

I couldn't resist; she was my best friend! I just had to! "Awwww!" I cried before I could stop myself. Katie and Connor jumped apart, both hitting their heads on the top of the bunk bed at the same time. That was even cuter.

"And for the second time today I ask, what possessed you to do that?" Katie whined, rubbing where she hit her head.

Nico came in then, soda bottle in hand, looking thoroughly like he couldn't care less. "What's going on in here?" He caught sight of Katie and Connor's embarrassed expressions and cracked a knowing smile.

"Oh my gods. Can you two please just get out of here?" Katie whined, looking to Connor for support. Connor was actually laughing at his own predicament, which he earned a very dirty look from Katie for. He stopped.

"If you insist," Nico said, walking back out the door. I followed.

"How long have Katie and Connor been going out?" Nico asked Travis once the back door was closed behind us.

"They're not going out, not technically anyway," Travis said, studying something against the sky, something that looked suspiciously like the ring I'd been wearing not five minutes ago. I looked down at my hand. It was gone.

"Travis. Give me back my ring," I said, holding out my hand. He sighed and handed it back to me reluctantly.

"But they were like, kissing in there," Nico said, as if the ring ordeal hadn't happened.

Travis thought for a second. "Why are you so interested?" he asked suddenly.

"I need something to make fun of Katie for! She's always picking fights and I hate it when she wins. Normally poking at her love life guarantees me the fight," Nico said, as if this was totally normal. It seemed to work for Travis.

"I'll ask Connor later," he said, putting his hands in his pockets and tipping back in his chair, taking another sip of soda.

"Travis, what time is it?" I asked. Travis checked his watch, something obviously worth much more than he could have bought.

"Four thirty."

"I've got to get back to my cabin. I have to change before dinner," I said. I took the last sip of my soda and put the bottle on the table.

"You're going to the movie tonight, right?" Nico asked, sitting back down on the step.

"Yeah. Does Katie normally go?" I asked.

"Yes, and you're going to help me pick an outfit for tonight, because I'm going with Connor," Katie said from behind me. I turned around to find her standing in the doorway.

"Sounds good," I said. "See ya'll later," I called to Nico, Travis and Connor, as I walked through, and out of the Hermes cabin.

Katie, instead of heading for the Apollo cabin, walked to the Chaos cabin. "I don't have any nice clothes with me. Can I borrow some of yours?" she asked once we were inside.

"Sure. And pick me out something nice while you're at it, will you?" I said, walking into my bathroom. I tied my hair up on top of my head and hopped in the shower, just to quickly clean myself off, and five minutes later, I walked back into the bedroom wrapped in a towel.

On the couch was laid out a pair of light blue jean shorts and a green tank top with PEACE written across it in brown letters. Simple enough. Katie, with her clothes draped over her arm, walked into the bathroom to change, leaving me with the main room. I threw on the shorts and tank top, finishing off the outfit with a brown sweatshirt over the top, to keep me warm and my green flip flops because I couldn't be bothered putting on real shoes.

I studied myself in the mirror over my dresser. The French braid my hair was in was a complete mess, so I pulled the rubber band off the end and pulled it apart, letting my hair fall wavy down my back. I put a green headband in and smiled, satisfied with the way I looked. I wasn't gorgeous, but I wasn't ugly either, which was fine with me.

But of course, I wasn't just one upped, but five million upped when Katie walked out of the bathroom, long blonde hair in a sort of half pony tail, wearing a pair of skinny jeans and a pink flowery top that made her eyes look stunning. Even in her ballet flats, she was taller than me, looking like a runway model.

Katie handed me my chap stick and iPod, which I stuffed in my pants pockets, and she, the more sophisticated one of the two of us, grabbed her purse.

"Shall we get going?" she asked in a fake English accent.

"I believe we shall," I replied, smiling warmly at my gorgeous best friend.

...

_Does everybody have to be in love? _I thought as I watched Katie and Connor snuggle up in front of me. They'd been like that since we got to the movie, for nearly an hour now as we waited for it to get dark enough to be played.

As if reading my mind, Nico said, "It's quite sickening, isn't it?" from next to me.

"Quite," I replied, laying back on the grass the same way Nico was, looking at the stars. I'd never seen so many before! From my backyard in Houston, the light pollution wasn't that bad, but it was terrible in comparison to the light pollution here, which was exactly none.

"You like astronomy?" Nico asked, out of the blue.

"A lot, actually," I answered, staring up at the sky.

"You see that star right there?" Nico asked, pointing. I followed his finger and spotted a bright star in the middle of total darkness, one I didn't recognize.

"What about it?" I asked.

"That's my sister," he said, dropping his hand.

"Huh?"

"She was one of Artemis's hunters before she died. She was made into a star, like every other fallen hunter," Nico said, his voice suddenly very quiet. It sounded as if he was young again. Young and uncertain.

"You really miss her, don't you?" I asked, turning my head to look at him. His eyes met mine and locked.

"I do," he whispered.

We were startled back into the real world by the movie starting. I shook my head to clear away all thoughts and sat up, setting my focus on the side of the Big House where what looked to be the 1930's Robin Hood was playing.

I yawned loudly. Nico looked over at me, smiled a little, and turned his attention back to the movie. I leaned back against the grass again and just stared at the stars. They really were beautiful; shining brightly above our heads in huge numbers.

Nico copied me, laying down on his back and staring up at the sky with me. I yawned again, and Nico chuckled.

"Why is it that whenever we spend time together, it ends in you sleeping?" he asked, amused.

"I dunno," I mumbled, half asleep.

"You can use my shoulder as a pillow again, I don't really mind," Nico said, smiling a little.

"Thanks..." I curled up next to Nico, yawned one last time, and fell asleep.


	7. Nico's Run in with Death

**AN: I'm back! I tried my best to break the expected cliché in this one... normally in Nico/OC fanfics, there's some sort of swimming chapter. I have no idea why swimming is such a necesity, but in every crap Nico fic, they go swimming. Normally they go for a swim in like, the second chapter and fall in love. "OMG his abs were like, soooooo sexi I nearly fainted and when we went swimming there was this other girl there checking him out and I was like geeeeet awaaaaaaay bitttchh and I slapped her and we fell in love and we lived happily ever after!" Um... no. So I decided to put my own spin on the totally cliché swimming scene every Nico romance has. Hope you like it! (Thanks a BILLION to my faithful beta Shane for the idea behind this chapter. Every funny thing in here is a creation of hers. I owe you, sistah, and if I could make a heart on this goddamn website, I would.) Review! **

**Maggie**

**...**

_Knock, knock, knock... _

From my position on the top bunk of my bed, I had to turn my entire body all the way around to look at my door where it just so happened someone was knocking. At six in the morning. On a Sunday. Who does that to someone? Cruel people, that's who. So it basically meant, Katie was at my door.

"Sofia, let me in!" Sure enough, it was Katie's voice who called through the door of my cabin. Her voice sounded urgent, but in my half asleep state, I couldn't care less.

"Go away!" I tried to shout, but it ended up as a mumbled mixture of words that even I had a hard time understanding. _Fail. _

"Sofia, I'm not kidding now. LET ME IN!" Katie pounded harder on the door, now using her signature flitting knock that got extremely annoying after a while.

_Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap... _I threw my covers off me, climbed slowly down the ladder, unlocked my door, and swung it open. There stood Katie, looking as if she'd been awake for hours, her hair perfect, clothes clean and crisp, and a distressed look on her beautiful face.

"What's wrong?" I asked, yawning loudly. Katie walked in and threw herself down on my couch. "Come on in..." I mumbled sarcastically. She didn't hear me.

Katie threw her head back and stared at the ceiling. "Nico and I got into a fight this morning and he stormed off. He's not at camp anymore, Chiron's mad at me, he needs to feed Mrs. O'Leary, I really don't want to go looking for him, and- why is your dagger in the ceiling?"

I looked up at where my shiny silver dagger was stuck in the wood of the ceiling. "I was using it to play catch and it got stuck," I said simply, sitting down next to Katie.

"Well that makes perfect sense," Katie mumbled sarcastically. "Anyway, everything's going wrong, and I have no idea how to fix it."

"It's six in the morning. Can't you get some sleep and worry about it later?" I moaned, fighting another yawn.

"No, I can't get some sleep and worry about it later, Sofia! Nico's gone and it's all my fault!" Katie whined, her bottom lip beginning to quiver.

"What were you two fighting about anyway?" I asked.

"You," Katie said simply.

"Me?"

"Yes, you."

"Why me?" I was beginning to get confused.

"I'm scared that maybe, just maybe, Nico has feelings for you," Katie, said, as if it was paining her to even think about it.

"And that's a bad thing because...?" Nico was pretty cute. It's not like it would be the end of the world if he liked me.

Katie seemed horrified at the thought of me and Nico as a couple. "He's _Nico," _she said, as if this was a justifiable answer.

"And?"

"He's a son of Hades."

"Okay. Not seeing how that's a problem here..."

"This isn't getting anywhere," Katie sighed, looking out of the window. "Have you seen Nico since yesterday?"

"Not since he brought me back to my cabin last night," I replied. "Why did you even have a chance to talk this morning? It's six!"

"We didn't fight about it this morning. We fought about it last night when he brought you back here," Katie said, as if that was totally normal.

"Who started it?" I asked. No answer. "_Who started the fight, _Katie_," _I pressed.

"Me," she mumbled, not making eye contact with me.

"Maybe, just maybe, if you stopped picking fights with Nico every time something didn't go your way, you two would actually get along! And maybe, if you'd minded your own business about feelings one person had for another person, Nico wouldn't be gone right now!" I snapped, spinning around and looking Katie dead in the eye. She shrunk under my gaze, and I literally mean _shrunk. _Her shoulders lowered, she slunk down on the couch, and her normally confident gaze was very visibly longing to be free from my stare.

I sat down next to Katie, breaking eye contact, and put my arm around her. "We'll find Nico, I promise," I said, putting on a smile. It seemed to convince Katie who, for once, didn't have anything to say.

I opened my mouth to continue speaking when what sounded like the tap in my bathroom turned on. I looked at Katie with a bewildered expression only to find that hers was just as confused as mine.

I stood up on the couch and reached up to my ceiling, pulling the dagger out from the wood. Once it was free, I hopped off the couch and walked with Katie to the bathroom door. Sure enough, the sound of water could clearly be heard coming from my bathroom.

"Open the door, then," Katie whispered, gesturing towards the bathroom with her head.

"You do it!" I whispered back, taking a step away from the bathroom.

"You do it!"

"You do it!"

"You do it!"

"We can both do it!" I gave up, walking towards the door. I reached for the handle with my free hand and turned, Katie only inches behind me.

The door opened to reveal, who else, but a handsome shaggy haired Mediterranean boy with black eyes and skinny jeans standing at my sink, brushing his teeth with a toothbrush I didn't recognize.

"Of course it's di Angelo! Why wouldn't it be di Angelo?" Katie cried, throwing her hands up in exasperation as she walked from the bathroom door. Nico looked over at us, sniggered, pulled his toothbrush from his mouth, put the toothbrush in my toothbrush holder, and turned to me.

"Would you mind telling me what you're doing in my cabin, please?" I said, putting my dagger through the back of my bun like a pencil and crossing my arms.

"I _was _hiding from Katie, but now I realize it wasn't the wisest of choices I could have made," Nico replied simply.

"And what possessed you to hide in _my_ cabin?" I asked, deciding to adopt Katie's signature phrase, simply because it seemed fitting.

"Because no other only people in the camp would let me stay if they found out," he said, as if this was perfectly justifiable. It wasn't.

"And what makes you think I'm fine with waking up at six in the morning to a best friend nearly in tears, only to find you in my bathroom, acting as if nothing was wrong?" I asked, trying to keep all emotion out of my voice. I was doing pretty well so far.

"Because you're cool," he said, walking past me and out of the bathroom. I turned to look at him. He sat down on my couch, grabbed one of Katie's magazines, and opened it to a random page.

I walked into the main room, arms crossed, and stared at him in disbelief. Did he think he owned the whole camp? Like always with his confident aura, though, I got no sense of narcissism from him. I was scared of him, and yet I knew I had no reason to be. He was confident, but knew how far to push it. I couldn't decide whether I liked it or disliked it.

"What does me being cool have to do with sneaking into my house?" I asked.

"I already told you. Everybody else would have kicked me out by now." He was making confused faces at some article in the magazine.

I stood in shocked silence, watching Nico act so comfortably in a cabin that wasn't his, totally without permission. "Well then," I said after a minute. "I'm going back to bed. Goodnight!" I climbed back up my bed ladder, curled up beneath my covers, and pretended to fall asleep until Nico and Katie left.

...

"What do you want to do today?"

"Beats me."

"Gee, that helps. How about you, Nico?"

"Like you'd listen to any ideas I have."

"Good point. I'm officially bored."

I stretched out my arms and yawned loudly, trying to release some of the tension that had built in my muscles after lying on the ground for so long. It was roughly twelve noon, scorching hot, and Katie, Nico and I had nothing to do. We'd resorted in lying in the middle of the soccer field, watching the players run around the and trying not to fall asleep out of sheer boredom. After the incident this morning, everything returned to normal, and unfortunately, normal wasn't fun enough for our little trio of ADHD suffering demi-gods.

"Do you want to practice fighting?" Nico asked. He was lying next to me, hands behind his head, a blank expression on his face.

My mind wandered back to my dagger which, as of right then, was sitting in the bottom of my bath tub due to a most unfortunate run in with the shower curtain that morning. I blushed scarlet, and replied quickly, "Nah, I'm not in the mood," before Katie could agree to it.

"What do you want to do then?"

"Beats me. You wanna go swimming?" Katie offered. She was lying on my left side, blonde hair splaying around her head gracefully, sipping a strawberry smoothie she'd bought a few minutes ago occasionally.

"NO." Nico's sharp, quick response was shocking. He was never this worked up about anything.

"Why don't you want to go swimming?" Katie asked, taking the straw out of her mouth interestedly.

"I just don't want to go swimming, that's all," Nico mumbled, looking away from me and Katie.

"You sound awfully worked up for someone who 'just doesn't wanna go swimming,'" Katie said, sitting up and looking at Nico with a sly expression on her face.

"I don't want to go swimming, okay?" Nico was blushing bright red. Katie and I looked at each other with a wondrous look in our eye. What about swimming was getting Nico so worked up? Katie and I were going to find out.

"Hey Percy!" Katie called to the figure on the other side of the field. He looked up and smiled, waving at us. Katie signalled for him to join us.

Percy jogged up to us. "Hey guys. What's up?" he asked, looking down at the three of us, sitting on the ground, completely in the way of the soccer players. He contemplated joining us, and after a few seconds of thinking, decided to sit down next to Katie.

"Do you know why Nico doesn't like swimming?" Katie asked, deciding not to beat around the bush. That's one of Katie's best qualities; she approaches things head on.

"I didn't know Nico doesn't swim," Percy replied truthfully, looking at Nico. "Why don't you like swimming, Nico?" he asked. Nico mumbled something under his breath.

"Huh?" Katie wasn't going to leave him alone until she got a suitable, preferably embarrassing, answer from him. Nico did the mumbling thing again. "Come on, Nico! Don't be a priss! Why don't you like swimming?" Katie demanded.

"I said I can't swim, okay?" Nico exploded, standing up suddenly and turning away from us.

Katie choked on her smoothie and looked up at Nico, starting to laugh. "You mean to tell me, that Nico di Angelo, Ghost King extraordinaire, can't swim?" she spluttered, laughing so hard it looked physically painful.

Nico looked down at his feet and blushed. "I never had a chance to learn," he mumbled, kicking a rock near his foot.

"Then I think it's time you learned how to swim," Percy said, standing up and looking Nico dead in the eye.

"But I don't want to learn," Nico said, blushing even redder.

"Why not?" Percy asked.

"I just don't want to, I dunno," Nico mumbled. Katie's laughter from beside me was getting louder and louder as she rolled around on the floor, clutching her sides, her smoothie standing neglected on the grass. I picked it up and took a sip, wanting to be far away from this awkward situation. I felt bad for Nico, I'd been in my fair share of embarrassing situations before, but none like this.

"And that's precisely why I'm going to teach you," Percy said. "Come with me. I have some spare swim trunks in my cabin."

"I don't want to learn how to swim, Percy," Nico said, eyes widening with fear.

"You're learning!" Percy picked up Nico and threw him over his shoulder in a fireman's lift. Nico's kicking and beating of Percy's back must have been uncomfortable, but Percy didn't seem to notice. He continued to carry Nico towards the cabins. Katie and I looked at each other, shrugged, and got up, following Percy and Nico taking turns sipping the smoothie.

When we reached the cabins, Percy and Nico were already inside. Loud screams could be heard from inside, mainly Nico's, that seemed to be something along the lines of, "I DON'T WANT TO!" and "YOU CAN'T MAKE ME!" Whatever it was Nico was screaming, Percy didn't seem to take any notice, and despite Nico's frantic attempts to convince Percy to forget about teaching him how to swim, they body emerged, shirtless and wearing swim trunks, Percy's blue, Nico's black and looking a bit big for him.

"Do I have to do this?" Nico whined, looking at Percy with pleading eyes. He looked terribly distraught, more frightened than I had ever thought Nico could look.

"Yes, you do."

"Come on, man!" Nico yelled as Percy grabbed his wrist and began to pull him towards the lake. Katie and I followed. It looked like fun. Katie was only just getting over her original laughing fit and moving onto the realization that, really truly, Percy was going to teach Nico to swim. It took quite a lot of effort on my part to keep her standing upright as she laughed and laughed and laughed.

Nico did everything he could to get away from Percy's grasp; he shouted, grabbed at other campers, even stooped to gnawing at Percy's hand, but nothing worked. Percy succeeded in dragging him to the lake, where, against Nico's will, he threw him in the water.

Nico gasped for air, squealed a very girly sqeal in fear of drowning, and... stood up. The water was only waist deep. Katie and I were laughing so hard we fell to the ground, rolling around on the pier until Nico's death stare silenced us.

"Okay! Shall we begin?" Percy said, stepping into the water. Katie and I composed ourselves and sat on the pier, dangling our feet in the water and giggling to ourselves. I had to admit, it was pretty funny.

Percy calmed the water around them and told Nico to lay flat on his back. Nico hesitated, but agreed, and found himself floating on the top of the water peacefully. A small current, rolling and soft, was pulling Nico to the middle of the lake. Percy was making it do this, obviously.

"Now, just move your arms like this," Percy said, demonstrating a perfect backstroke. Nico tried but fell underwater, coughing and spluttering and gasping for air. "No, no, try again!"

Katie and I were laughing, falling over each other as we watched Nico desperately trying to stay above water, but absolutely failing. What had poor Nico done to deserve such humiliation? I don't know, but it sure was funny!

"You need to trust the water!" Percy called to Nico from the other side of the lake. The soft, rolling current had pulled Nico into the middle of the lake, and Percy stood near Katie and I watching. "Let it carry you! Feel no fear! It's not going to hurt you! That's it, stay calm, stay calm, you're doing a great jo- oh hey Annabeth!"

Annabeth walked up to Percy, wearing only a purple bikini top and a small pair of shorts, long golden hair flowing gracefully down her back. She gestured for Percy to climb out of the water and say hi to her, which he did. He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her full on the mouth, forgetting all about Nico in the water. The calm, rolling water that was slowly pulling Nico along was gone, replaced by the normal, rapid water of Lake Half Blood.

Nico freaked. "Percy!" he yelled, falling under water. "Percy!" Percy seemed to take no notice, too busy with Annabeth. Katie and I fell to the floor laughing at the spluttering, screaming Nico, but when his pleas got more and more desperate, and he seemed to be spending more time underwater than above it, I started to freak out too.

Katie continued to laugh as I shot up, staring at the drowning Nico in the middle of the lake. He was only bobbing up every once in a while now, and each time he did, his face grew more and more frightened.

I looked back at Katie, who was now curled up in a ball, rocking back and forth, laughing so hard she was crying. What was I supposed to do? Nico was drowning, Percy and Annabeth were kissing mindlessly behind me, and Katie was having a laugh attack!

Nico's screams didn't help. I started to cry, which didn't help the situation one bit. My powers switched on, and all hell broke loose. The water around poor Nico started to turn into a whirlpool, sending the little bits and bobs that snapped off of trees and buildings around us speeding towards him. The water turned ice cold, all the birds in the trees surrounding us took flight and left, and Nico was dying in front of my eyes.

Nico's cries turned from "Percy! Percy!" to "Sofia! Sofia!" as he attempted to calm me down. Katie was beginning to compose herself, Percy and Annabeth weren't blindly pressing their faces together anymore, and Nico was still drowning.

"Oh my gods! Percy save him!" Annabeth shouted, snapping into commando mode. Percy jumped into the water, but it didn't calm down. Chaos beats Poseidon, hands down. Annabeth ran to me once Percy was trying to get Nico out of the water and clamped her strong hands down on my shoulders and looking me dead in the eyes. I could just barely see her face through my tears, but I could tell it was serious.

"Calm down, Sofia!" she shouted, squeezing my shoulders.

"Ow!" I cried, shaking loose from her grip. The tears that sprang to my eyes when the pain from her nails hit me only made the situation worse.

"What do we do?" Annabeth cried to Katie over the noise.

"If her piffs are caused by emotion, wouldn't a sudden change in emotion, for the better, stop this entire thing?" Katie called back, running up to Annabeth, suddenly serious. I was collapsed on the ground, curled up into a ball as I always seemed to during one of my piffs.

"I guess that would work..." Annabeth trailed off in thought. She suddenly snapped her head up and a look of confusion crossed her face. "Wait, _piff?" _

"It's what Sofia and I call a nervous breakdown," Katie explained.

"Oh. Okay then. Back on topic, how do we change her mood so drastically so quickly?" Annabeth asked, starting to pace.

"Maybe if we give her like, a lollipop or something..."

"I think it's gonna take more than just a lollipop to change her mood like that," Annabeth said, pacing even faster now.

"I honestly don't think anything will. She's kind of stubborn," Katie said.

"I'm right here!" I sobbed, burying my face in my knees and curling up even tighter.

"Crap. I forgot she had ears," Annabeth growled under her breath.

I was shocked upright when a loud bang hit the doc next to me. I wiped my eyes and looked at the tan figure laying next to me. _Nico. _And he was alive. Percy collapsed next to him, panting in time with Nico's raspy coughs.

The silence that followed was what really shocked us all. The loud crashing of the water was gone, every bird that was once in the trees gone, and nobody dared say a word. Each of us was staring into the distance, searching for a sound that had once been there, but nothing could be heard. The lake was just far enough from the camp that the campers couldn't be heard just by listening, which was odd to begin with, but when those two were added together, the silence became eerie. The only sound that could be heard was the hoarse coughing of Nico who, at this point, hadn't opened his eyes. The grim, sickening sound of his coughs didn't do much to help the silence. Annabeth and I were both crying, me more than her, Katie was sitting there looking genuinely worried, which I honestly didn't expect, Percy was trying to catch his breath, and Nico coughed out all the water he could from his lungs, not looking, at this point, like he was going to make it very far. And when he stopped coughing, it didn't help either. We waited, all refusing to look at him, but we went unrewarded for about five minutes, until...

"It's quiet. _Too _quiet," a voice said from next to me, thin and gravely. I turned my head to find Nico sitting up, head in his hands, breathing quick, shallow breaths, a small smirk on his face.

"Nico!" I cried, throwing myself at him. I wrapped my arms around his soaking wet body, hugging him so tight it hurt. I didn't care that my shirt had absorbed a good deal of the water on his skin, nor did I care that my squeezing probably didn't help his violent coughing. No, I was just glad that Nico was alive.

He laughed lightly and took his head from his hands, wrapping his arms around me and pulling me close. I heard Percy, Annabeth, and surprisingly enough, Katie, sigh in relief as Nico and I sat hugging on the pier, both of us perfectly alive.

"Should we get Chiron down here to make sure Nico's alright? I don't really like the idea of him walking all the way back to the Big House, in case there really is something wrong with him," I heard Annabeth say from above me.

"I think that's a good idea," Percy's voice replied. "We need to head back to get dry clothes for Nico and Sofia anyway."

"I'll get Sofia's. I know where she keeps everything," Katie said.

Nico shifted next to me, keeping his right arm around me, but letting me sit up properly, so we could both look at the three people in front of us.

"Sofia, stay here with Nico. If anything goes wrong, don't freak out. Just yell and we'll hear," Annabeth said. Goodness, she was bossy.

"Got it," I choked out, still crying.

"Stay here. We'll be back in a bit." And with that, they walked off towards the camp, leaving me and Nico alone on the pier.

Nico turned to me, a small smile on his tired face. "Well that was quite the experience, wasn't it?" he said, a hint of humour in his voice.

"You almost died!" I cried, wiping my eyes. There was no point; my cheeks were instantly wet again with fresh tears. He chuckled, as if it was funny. "It's not funny! I was scared out of my mind!"

"I just find it kind of ironic, actually," he said, "that the son of death himself come so close to dying so often."

I wiped my eyes again, this time kind of pleased when I found that my cheeks stayed significantly drier than before. "I was too scared to think of the irony," I replied.

"But I'm safe now. So you can look at the funny side," Nico said, a full on grin on his face now.

We sat in silence for a minute before I looked back up at him and spoke. "Why did you never learn how to swim?" I asked, no longer crying.

"Generally, children of the Big Three try and stay out of the realms of the other two uncle gods. As a son of Hades, I could never fly in planes, or swim in oceans or lakes that weren't protected, like this one. And plus, I never had the time. I was darting back and forth a lot as a kid, and when I got to camp, I was too depressed about everything around me to learn." He said all this like it was totally normal.

"Would Poseidon try to kill me if I swam in the ocean or something? He hasn't in the past," I said.

"I don't think he would. You are, after all, his aunt." Again, he said this like it could happen to anyone.

"I'm Poseidon's aunt?" I spluttered, my eyes widening suddenly.

"Great aunt, actually. Not that any of it matters. In Greek mythology, unless you share the same parent, you're not technically related to any demi god, or real god," he said.

"So if I'm Poseidon's great aunt, then I'm Hades' great aunt too, right?" I asked. Nico nodded. "That makes me your great, great aunt!"

"You're four generations older than me!" Nico laughed.

"That's scary..." I was totally over my piff, now laughing so hard it hurt. I was having a hard time grasping the concept of being four generations older than Nico.

"Needless to say, our godly side doesn't count too much towards our relations as family in camp," Nico said, smiling.

"Makes sense," I chuckled.

I was tired, cold, and a little uncomfortable in my position on the hard pier. I was sitting leaning to one side, legs curled up next to me as I leaned against a still sopping Nico. He still had his arm around my shoulders, and when he realized I was shivering, he looked down at me with soft eyes.

"Cold?" he asked before leaning away to cough. He turned back to me when he was done, his eyes half closed.

"Maybe." Nico smirked. "Tired?" I countered, smiling at his half asleep expression.

"Maybe," he said, teasing me. "You look pretty exhausted yourself."

"I'm not tired," I said. And to make me look like an even bigger idiot, I yawned.

"Yeah, right," Nico said, smirking. "Percy, Annabeth, and Katie will be back soon. They'll get you back to your cabin and you can get a good nights sleep. Sound good?"

"And what are you going to do?" I asked, suddenly curious.

"I'm going to sleep. Near death experiences have a tendency to wear people out, you know," he said, fighting a yawn. It failed, and he yawned anyway, perfectly in time with my equally as tired yawn. We chuckled, and continued to sit there, waiting for Percy, Annabeth, and Katie.

About ten minutes later, Nico looked down at me, and I looked up, fighting the urge to fall asleep. "I guess this makes us friends, then," he said, a small smile hinting at the corners of his mouth.

"I guess it does."

We sat in a long and comfortable silence as we waited, his arm around my shaking body, my head resting on his now pretty dry shoulder. I was still pretty uncomfortable, sitting on a wooden floor for nearly an hour can do that to a person, but it didn't matter. Nico was safe, I was warm (ish), and clean clothes were on the way. And best of all, we were friends.

_Friends. _

Why did that make me unhappy?

...

"What do I do?" I asked, turning to Katie, Percy, and Nico. I was standing in front of the fountain in Percy's bedroom, gold coin in hand, waiting for an answer as to what I was supposed to do with it.

"Here," Nico said, taking the coin and throwing it into the fountain. "Oh goddess Iris, goddess of rainbows, show us..." Nico turned to me and motioned with his hands for me to say something.

"Huh? Oh! Donna Lovette, Houston Texas," I said, kind of confused. The fountain started to turn from sparkling blue to other shiny colours, fading into a familiar picture. Once the picture was solid, it clicked. I was looking at my kitchen! And my mother was right in front of me!

"Mom!" I cried, stepping towards the fountain. I reached for it but Nico knocked my hand away.

"You can't touch her, it's just a picture. You can talk to her, though," Nico said. I pulled my hand away reluctantly, confused.

That was when my mother noticed me. "Oh! Hey honey!" she said, pulling her hands up. They were soaking wet. Was my picture in the sink? Seemed like it.

"Hi, Mommy," I said, smiling a little at her familiar face. She reached for a green tea towel and dried her hands, smiling into the picture warmly.

"How've you been, kiddo?" she asked, her southern accented voice comforting.

"I guess I've been okay," I said, still getting used to the idea of talking to my mom through a faucet.

"That's good, honey," she said, smiling widely at me. I took in her peroxide blonde hair, obnoxious blue eye makeup, dark red lipstick, and realized just how much I missed it. Despite her overly done appearance, and the spotless kitchen behind her I always despised, I felt my heart tug. I realised at that moment that I missed my home quite a lot.

"I miss you, Mommy," I said, smiling longingly at my mother's face in the fountain.

"I miss you too, cupcake," she said, smiling back. Her eyes darted from my face to the faces of those around me. "Hey Katie."

"Hey, Mrs. L," Katie said, waving.

"Who else is with you?" my mom asked, looking at Nico and Percy.

"I'm Nico," the boy on my right said, smiling a little.

"And who's son are you, dear?" my mother asked. Wait, _what? _She knows about the gods?

"Hades," he replied simply.

"Oh. And you?" she asked Percy, picking up a dish and scrubbing it with a sponge.

"Poseidon," Percy said.

"Two children of the Big Three! Wow," she said, chuckling to herself.

How did my mother know all this about the gods? And why hadn't she told me? An awkward silence followed her comment about the Big Three. Why had she kept all this a secret from me for so many years? Something so important about who I am shouldn't have been kept from me!

"Why didn't you tell me?" I asked suddenly, my voice cracking. "Why did you lie to me all these years?"

My mother looked taken aback. "I wasn't supposed to, honey!" she said defensively.

"And what did you expect to happen when I found out, huh? I'm lied to all my life, hunted down by an animal I'd been told was just a myth, taken to a place I'd never heard of before with no explanation as to why, told that Greek gods exist, and that you're not my real mother! What about that is okay?" Tears were streaming down my face now as I looked at my mother.

"I-I'm sorry honey! I'm not one to argue with the _gods _for goodness sake!" my mother protested, starting to look more and more upset with every word she said.

"What's more important, mom? The word of some mythical beings the majority of the world has no idea exists, or the wellbeing of your _only _daughter?" I cried, the tears streaming hot down my cheeks. "Tell me, mom," I said quietly, "how did you get yourself into this mess?"

My mom took a shuddering breath and closed her eyes. When she opened them again, they were free from tears. She looked me dead in the eye and said, "Oh where do I begin?"

"How about explaining to me why you're not my mother," I offered, crossing my arms.

"Honey, the story starts way before that," my mother said, sighing. "When I was thirteen, I found out that my mother hadn't died in a car crash, like I'd always been told. I found out my mother was Hera."

"_What?" _Our simultaneous expression of confusion shocked my mother.

"Yes, I am a demi-god. And when your father and I realised we couldn't have kids, we turned to the gods. I hate to tell you this, Sofie, but I don't know who your blood father is. But your mother is Chaos, and she knew she couldn't raise you on her own, so she gave you up." My mother's face was serious and emotionless.

"So you're not my real mom?" I asked the childish question before my mind could stop it. My tough, merciless voice was replaced with that of an unsure child, scared and confused. My mother seemed to notice that, and smiled reassuringly at me.

"I'm afraid not, sweetheart," she said. "By blood, anyway."

"I miss you, Mommy." Tears were streaming down my face for the third time today. Everything was starting to come crashing down on my shoulders, the realisation that I wasn't who I thought I was after all, that my family wasn't my real family, _that Greek gods exist, _it was all too much to bear.

"I miss you too, sweetheart. I'll come visit you soon, okay?" My mother was crying too as she said this. I looked up into her big blue eyes and nodded, sniffling.

"I love you," I whispered.

"And I love you," she whispered back. "Now I've got to go," she said, speaking normally now and wiping tears from her face, "Jenny's husband wants a divorce and they've appointed me their marriage therapist. I'll talk to you later, sweetie, okay?"

"Okay. Tell Jenny I say hi," I said, drawing in a shuddering breath.

"I will. Bye now," my mother said, reaching for the tap on the faucet.

"Bye." She turned off the tap, and her picture disappeared.

I turned around to face my three shocked friends, took a deep breath, and burst into tears, crumpling onto the ground. I felt an arm wrap around my shoulders, thin and warm, and a soft voice saying, "Hush, it's all okay."

"That was intense," I heard Nico's voice say from above me.

"I know how it feels. The same thing happened to me when I found out I was a demi god," Percy replied, his voice filled with worry.

"She'll be fine. She's a trooper," Katie said from beside me, her head resting on my shoulder as she tried to comfort me. I could hear Percy's door opening and closing on its own, or rather, falling victim to my merciless powers.

I looked up to find Nico staring out of the window with a thoughtful look on his face, Percy staring down at me with worry in his eyes, and Katie resting her head on my shoulder, eyes closed, hugging my arm to her body. The room was silent.

I broke the silence. "I'm tired," I sighed, wiping my eyes with my free hand. All eyes turned to me.

"Get some sleep, then," Nico said.

"I think I'll do that," I said. Katie let go of my arm and stood up with me.

I walked from Percy's cabin, out into the dimming light, and to my cabin where, after a quick shower and brushing my teeth, I threw on my pyjamas and climbed into bed.

The last words I spoke that night were simple, but they were heard. "Mom," I whispered. "Who are you?"


	8. Stupid Friggin Triangle

**AN: Did the last chapter confuse you? Well prepare to be more confused because the plot is about to thicken pretty drastically! No longer is this just a summer story... it'll actually have something to do with the gods now, and actually have a plot line. Review! **

**Maggie**

**...**

It was dark. Very dark. In front of me loomed a door, tall and ornate, with a triangle carved into the middle. How was I supposed to get through? I turned my head and looked to my left. A tall, tanned, moppy haired boy wearing skinny jeans and a dark red tee shirt was standing beside me. I looked to my right and saw a gorgeous, blonde haired, blue eyed girl holding a candle and a yellow backpack. I'd seen them before, but at that moment, I wasn't concentrating on who they were. No, my mind was set on the door in front of me.

The girl reached out and touched the door, resting her small fingertips on the wood. Within seconds, the door started to glow blue. She pulled her hand away, startled. The boy on my left copied the girl, and touched the door as well, and for the second time, it glowed bright blue. The boy pulled his hand away.

I reached my hand forward and rested my fingertips on the door, but it didn't glow blue. In fact, it stayed the same. I looked at the girl and the boy confusedly. Why wasn't anything happening? That was when I heard it start to hum, a faint buzzing in the back of my ear, and when I turned my head to look at it, I found the entire door glowing red. Bright red.

It started to crumble. I pulled my hand away and watched as the door I thought had weighed a ton crumpled before my eyes. The boy and the girl beside me disintegrated with the door. I called to them, screamed for the buzzing to stop, grabbed at their crumbling remains, but nothing happened. The world around me was falling to pieces, and I was being eaten alive by the loud hum that seemed to resonate from inside of my skull.

"_Sofia,"_ I heard a voice breathe from inside me.

"_Hello?" _I called back. "_Who's there?" _

"_I am not here to hurt you. I am here to warn you," _the voice said. It was a female voice, soothing and calm, but wild and reckless at the same time.

"_Warn me about what?" _I asked, looking around for who could be talking to me. All I saw was blackness.

"_Yourself. Your future. Your quest," _the voice breathed. I ran around helplessly, trying to find a way out of the darkness. There was no use. It went on forever.

"_I don't know what you're talking about!" _I cried back, frantic.

"_Calm down, Sofia," _the voice said.

"_Who are you?" _I sobbed, feeling tears stream down my cheeks.

"_You will find out in time. I have come to warn you." _

"_About what?" _I asked again, starting to get fed up with the breathy voice inside me.

"_Keep a level head, my dear. Emotions will get you nowhere," _the voice said.

"_Is that what you've come to warn me about?" _I asked.

"_Yes. You must stay in control of your emotions. You will face hardships no person should ever have to bear in the next few months, but you have to stay strong. Stay strong, darling, stay strong..." _

"_I don't know if I can," _I said, suddenly unsure.

"_You are not who you think you are, my dear. You are much more, so much more..." _the voice trailed off, leaving me in silence.

"_Hello? Are you there?" _

"_So much more... so much more..." _

...

My head collided with the ceiling and made me cry out in pain. It was dark out still, the sun hadn't even begun to rise, and the throbbing in my head was making it impossible to see clearly. What time was it? I reached over for my little alarm clock I kept in the top bunk with me. Three thirty.

I sighed, wide awake, and slid out of my bed, climbing down the ladder and stepping onto the cold floor. I slid on my flip flops and walked into my bathroom, squinting when I flicked on the light. I looked at myself in the mirror. A red bump was raising on my forehead. Great.

I turned on the tap and splashed some water on my face, waking myself up for good. When I looked back in the mirror, I took some time to analyze myself. Why had I never noticed that I didn't look like my parents before? Both my mother and my father I'd grown up with in Texas were blonde haired, blue eyed, and fair skinned. I had long dark hair, a freckled face, and brown eyes. It's physically impossible for two people with blue eyes to have a child with brown eyes. _Why hadn't I noticed that before? _

I wasn't at all who I thought I was a week ago. That time a week before, I was curled up in my small but comfortable little bed in my messy room in Houston, Texas, Sofia Lovette, human girl, and now, I was standing in a way too clean bathroom in a camp for kids who are half Greek god, just Sofia, demi-god, and more confused than I'd ever been before. Who was I? Where was I? And what was that goddamn dream about?

I dried my face and walked out of the bathroom, throwing on a pair of jean shorts and a Snoopy tee shirt that was lying on my floor. After grabbing a sweatshirt, my iPod, and a chap stick, I left my cabin, closing the door quietly behind me.

I stood still on my doorstep for a second, staring up at the stars, delighted to see that there were no clouds covering up the beautiful sky. Putting on my sweatshirt, I walked quietly through the camp and to the soccer field, where the sky wouldn't be obscured by trees.

When I got to the middle of the field, I threw myself down on the ground, putting my hands behind my head and staring into the sky, letting all my worries drift from my mind. I always found the sky comforting, the stars in particular. From being a little girl and having no way of getting out my frustration towards my life, I'd turned to the chaos of the stars to act as a sort of safe haven.

Camp Half-Blood must have been in the complete middle of _nowhere, _because I'd never seen so many stars in the sky. Millions of them clustered in the sky, forming constellations I hadn't even known existed before in every corner of the black abyss they dotted. I trained my vision on one area, over to the left, and slowly moved it across the sky, taking a good look at each star before moving on. They were twinkling above happily, oblivious to the world below them, smiling down at me on that soccer field and wrapping me in their comforting arms.

I could have been lying there for hours before I heard a noise that was different from the normal midnight soundtrack, because when I heard footsteps only a few feet away, all my limbs had fallen asleep. So, looking like a total idiot, I continued to lay there while whoever had caught me mid stargazing session walked up to me.

My body tensed when the footsteps stopped only a few inches from the top of my head. Fully expecting Chiron or someone important to pick me up and haul me back to my cabin, I was genuinely surprised to see the silhouette of a familiar teenage boy looming above me when I looked up. And when that teenage boy sat down next to me, I saw it was Nico.

"You're up early," I said, sitting up slowly, as not to startle myself.

"You're one to talk," Nico replied, staring straight ahead. His face was expressionless. What was bothering him? Should I ask? I was his friend, after all. That's what friends do, right? The only real friend I'd ever had was Katie, and you don't exactly have to ask her about what's wrong. She's already half way through the story before you get the idea that she's trying to tell you why she's upset. Nico, on the other hand, wasn't like that at all.

"Are you okay?" I asked, sort of hoping he'd say yes so I could avoid anything that could turn into a twenty minute rant about who pissed off who like Katie does when she's angry.

"I'm alright. Just thinking. You?" Nico's eyes continued to stay locked on the horizon, where it was just beginning to grow lighter.

"I had a nightmare," I replied, looking up at the sky as well. The stars were slowly starting to disappear as the orange sunlight began to creep across the horizon. The camp would be up soon.

"About what?" Nico asked, turning his head to look at me.

"There was a door and when I touched it, it glowed bright red. And then it crumpled and someone was talking to me, telling me I'm much more than I think I am and about a quest and crap," I said, starting to replay the dream in my head. The girl and the boy were Nico and Katie, that was a given, but why did the door glow blue when they touched it and red when I did?

"Interesting. Did you know that demi-god dreams are generally not normal dreams? I'd advise talking to the Oracle about it," Nico said.

"The Oracle?" I asked.

"Apollo's future telling device. She has a room in the Big House. Number seven, towards the back. Go talk to her when you get a chance." Nico's eyes were clouded with wonder. "Who else was in your dream?"

"You and Katie, but you crumpled into nothing before the voice started talking to me," I said.

"Go talk to the Oracle. She'll give you some answers," Nico said.

"Thanks. So why are you up so early, then?" I asked, changing the subject.

"I'm always up this early," Nico replied. "I've always had a sort of weird morning insomnia. Since my sister died, at least."

"You had a sister?" I said, not knowing whether or not it was wise of me to ask.

"Her name was Bianca. She was one of Artemis's Hunters. Died when I was ten," he said, looking thoughtfully back out into the distance.

"Oh. What was she like?" I asked.

"She was smart, the smartest person I think I've ever known. She was pretty, had skin like mine and long black hair, and her eyes, oh my gods her eyes. They were scary. Always alert, always staring into mine when I did something wrong. She wore a floppy green hat all the time because she thought she was ugly, when she was really one of the most beautiful people in the world. She was brave, loving, and she died too young." Nico's eyes were clouded with what looked like tears. I hadn't been expecting that! Was it wrong of me to ask about his sister?

"Is she what you were thinking about earlier?" I asked, unable to bring my voice over a whisper. I didn't mean to upset him. Nico nodded. "She died when you were ten?"

"Yeah. I miss her," he said, his voice quiet too.

"I'll bet. I'm sorry." I drew my legs into my body, wrapping my arms around my knees.

"Don't be. It's not your fault," Nico said, looking at me.

"No I mean I'm sorry I asked. I should have thought first," I said.

"Again, don't be. I'm almost sixteen. I should be over this by now." Nico didn't look upset anymore. Either he recovered quickly, or he was good at hiding it. Whatever it was, I didn't want to resurface that broken Nico again, so I dropped the subject.

"What do you want to do today?" I asked after a few seconds of silence.

"I don't know. I guess we could work on your fighting a little bit. That is, if you haven't lost your dagger in the mess that is your cabin," Nico said, looking playfully at me.

"I know exactly where my dagger is, thank you," I said in mock anger. It wasn't a lie, I knew where it was, it was sitting on my dresser. Katie must have told him about the dagger in the ceiling.

"Okay, so we can do that later." Nico turned his head from me back out to the horizon, where the sun was rising high in the sky. "Look," he said pointing to the sun. "It's morning."

"It is, isn't it?" The soft, silver moonlight that illuminated the world around Nico and I just moments ago was replaced with a warm, orange glow that quickly spread across the camp. As more and more light grew around us, the camp started to wake up. The first to stir was the Apollo cabin, alerting us to its awakening by the sudden blast of static from what seemed like a radio, followed by a loud, "_Good morning, Long Island, you're listening to 96.5!" _

Nico turned back to me, a content smile on his face. "Good morning," he said quietly.

"Good morning," I replied, laughing a little. I watched as he stood up and brushed himself off, holding out his hand for me to take and help myself up with. I took it and stood up, brushing myself off too.

"I'm going to go get dressed. We'll meet back up later, right?" he said, putting his hands in his pockets.

"Right," I said, smiling back.

"Bye for now," he said, turning to walk to his cabin.

"Bye!" I called to him before turning towards the Chaos cabin. As I passed each of the cabins, I found myself fascinated with the morning routines that each of the cabins had. The Apollo cabin had their bright yellow door wide open, a loud radio blasting a song that sounded like something by Katy Perry. The Demeter cabin was already out watering their plants, a few sleepy looking campers drinking tea on the porch and wearing vacant, tired expressions. A weird sounding alarm clock could be heard chiming from inside the Hephaestus cabin, and from what I could see inside the windows, machines were doing all kinds of things, from making coffee, to making beds. Each cabin had their own morning ritual, and each was strangely fascinating.

By the time I got to my cabin, I'd passed every cabin in the camp. From the Aphrodite cabin's obsessive moisturizing schedule, to the loud snores that resounded from the Ares cabin, each group of demi-gods had their own way of celebrating the new mornings. What was mine? Midnight conversations with Nico? Short, painful games of catch with my dagger? Waking up each morning to something new and always unpleasant? I had no idea. I was a misfit, I guess.

I pushed open the door to my cabin and stepped inside, only closing the screen door behind me. The sound of the Apollo cabin's radio floated through my cabin and cleared my groggy thoughts. "_You're listening to 96.5 on this fine Sunday morning. It's July 3__rd__, and today's forecast calls for sunny skies, temperatures in the high eighties and humidity of nearly ninety percent. Good luck to all who don't have access to water! It's gonna be one hot day for you!" _

I walked into my bathroom and opened my window, letting the radio host's voice carry through and into the room. Turning on the shower, I stepped in, and after washing my hair and taking great care in shaving my legs (I still cut myself), grabbed my toothbrush and started to brush my teeth. _"In the news today, the internet video of the trained bunny rabbit named Fringo has gone viral with an astonishing five million views. Go Fringo!" _

I reached for the glass on the side of the sink and took a sip of water. "_Also, the girl reported missing just three days ago has been found dead. Young Sofia Lovette, age fifteen, was murdered, the culprit still unknown." _

"_What?" _The water I had in my mouth only second before was now all over my mirror. I ran to the window and leaned out, listening carefully to the words the man on the radio was saying. "_Sofia, a student at Lincoln Community High School in Houston, Texas, was exuberant and funny. Her friends and family have refrained from commenting to the media about the tragedy that has befallen them. Sofia will be missed. Now to celebrity gossip, Taylor Swift has ended it with Jake..." _

"That's it? _That's it? 'She will be missed?' _You're kidding!" I cried, running from the bathroom and into my cabin. I grabbed a pair of shorts and a random top, threw them on, stepped back into my flip flops, and ran from my cabin, slamming the door behind me. I ran all the way to the Apollo cabin, where Katie was sitting in a rocking chair on the porch, reading _Seventeen _magazine as if nothing was wrong.

When she heard my footsteps up the steps to the porch, she looked up. Catching sight of me, she smiled. "Hey! How'd you sleep? Better tonight?"

"I'll have you know, I didn't get a wink of sleep last night," I sneered, crossing my arms and looking at her expectantly. She picked up on my pissed off expression.

"What?" She looked confused.

"'_She will be missed?' _What the hell was that? I'm not dead! Why do they think I'm dead!" I cried. A beam from the ceiling of the Apollo cabin's white painted porch fell noisily to the ground next to me.

"Whoa, calm down, Sofie," Katie said, closing her magazine and standing up.

"Calm down? Don't tell me to calm down! The entirety of the country thinks I've been murdered and you think I should just _calm down?" _I screeched. The radio blasting from inside the cabin, now playing some loud Lady Gaga song, started to change channels, alternating between loud squeals and little snip-its of random songs, supporting loud groans and whines from the kids inside.

Some kid, maybe twelve or thirteen, poked her head out of the window, annoyance written all over her face. "Can you please get her out of here?" she shouted over the noise of the radio.

"Already on it." Katie grabbed my arm, threw her magazine back on the rocking chair she had been sitting on, and dragged me from the Apollo cabin and to the woods. When we were finally out of range of the cabins, she dropped my arm and stared at me right in the face.

"Listen," she said, suddenly very serious. "Your powers are insanely strong. So strong, you pose a threat, a serious threat, to the wellbeing of the mortal population. As a little kid, you didn't know you were a demi god, so your powers were only small. Once you learn that you are, your powers grow significantly. We are required by law to tell you that you're a demi god by thirteen, but we managed to bargain with the gods to let us give you some more time in the real world. But now that you know, and until we can teach you to tame them, you're staying here. Got it?"

"Why didn't you tell me you were going to fake my death? I'd like to know about these things ahead of time, please!" I cried, still upset.

"We knew you would have acted like, well, like this!" Katie replied, gesturing to the branch that had fallen only inches from her body. Another branch fell after it. "Okay, maybe taking you to a forest to tell you about your fake death wasn't the best idea..." she mumbled to herself.

"Wait, who's '_we?'_" I asked.

"Me, Chiron, Percy, Annabeth, and Nico," she replied, sidestepping a large acorn that was aimed for her head.

"And when was this decided?" I demanded.

"Oh, after your little outburst when you first got to camp. We had no idea your powers were that strong. We needed a plan. And now, that plan has been put into action," Katie replied. "Come on, I'll get you a smoothie."

"I don't want a smoothie! I want to be able to go home and walk the streets without people thinking I've risen from the dead!" I cried.

"You can! Once you've gotten your powers under control, the media buzz will have died out! Nobody will remember that you've been killed!" Katie tried to bargain with me.

I sighed. "And you can still go home?" I asked.

"Yeah," Katie said, looking kind of guilty. "My powers aren't nearly as strong as yours. And I've been working at keeping them under control since I was really little. You, once you have some practice at controlling your emotions, should be good to go out in the real world. Until then, you're stuck here."

"I'm still mad I didn't get a say in this," I said, crossing my arms and looking at Katie with a very pissed off expression.

"I know. I'm sorry, I really am, but there was nothing I could do!" Katie looked completely and utterly upset with herself.

"Why does everybody at this camp treat me like a mentally challenged two year old?" I asked, trying my best to keep another branch from falling dangerously close to Katie's head. I failed and another large chunk of tree came crashing to the ground.

"Nobody treats you like a mentally challenged two year old!" Katie replied quickly, _too _quickly.

"Yes , lots of people do. You and Chiron and Percy and Annabeth won't let me have a say in my own life, kids snigger and whisper when I walk by, I have to be on watch practically every moment of the day, next thing I know you'll be putting me in a straight jacket and shoving pills down my throat!" I cried. This time, I didn't care if anything fell around me, and just let the leaves and acorns and branches crash to the ground.

"I can't change the views of the camp, it's way to big to stage a complete turn around of ideas, but you need to understand that those who really matter, and those who actually know you, don't think you're a mentally challenged two year old. And hey, you've only been here a week. The kids at the camp only know you as the demi god that ruined their houses on the first day. After a while, they'll get to know the real you," Katie said, reaching out and taking my hands in hers. "I love you, do you know that?"

"I know. I love you too." And that was when my emotional wall shattered into a million pieces. I ran forward and wrapped Katie in a hug so sudden it even startled me a little. But I was too busy crying to think about my actions. It was all so much to deal with all at once, the whole idea that my mom was a demi god my whole life and I didn't know it, that _I _was a demi god my entire life and I didn't know it, that I can never go back home without fear of people thinking that I'd died, that because Chaos is the opposite of order I'd never really get my powers under control, that I'd have to grow up in Camp Half Blood, that everybody at Camp Half Blood thought I was sort of demented Texan hillbilly with anger problems...

Katie stroked my hair softly and hushed me the way my mom always did when I was crying. All I could see through my tear clouded eyes was the soft blonde of her hair, the colour I'd always envied, and suddenly, I felt very calm. She was an inch or so taller than me, so her head rested lightly on mine as I cried into her shoulder. She smelled like honey.

I pulled back and looked her in the eyes. "_Thank you," _I mouthed, unable to find my voice. Katie smiled lightly and pulled me in for another hug.

...

I took a deep breath and knocked on the door to the number seven cabin in the Big House, a building I had yet to learn my way around. After disturbing quite a few people in the rooms I had mistaken for room seven (the letters on the doors were in Greek, in my defence...), nearly falling over some weird serpent thing sticking out of a random door marked _DO NOT ENTER, _and, much to my embarrassment, accidentally finding Percy and Annabeth's rendezvous meeting place, I reached the real cabin belonging to the Oracle, a person I still didn't know anything about, and rapped on the door.

A young girl answered, around nineteen, maybe, wearing cut-off jeans shorts and a camp tee shirt that clashed terribly with her red hair she was towel drying as she stood in the doorway. "Hello!" she said, when she saw me, rubbing her hair vigorously with the towel.

"Hi, I'm looking for the Oracle," I said, looking past her and into the room. I didn't see anyone.

"That's me!" she said, pulling the towel off her hair and putting it over her arm. "Rachel Elizabeth Dare at your service! Come on in!" She opened the door all the way and let me walk in before closing it behind me.

The room she had was small but cosy, an entire wall made of glass that overlooked the entire camp. I'd learned from my little adventure around the Big House that the entire back wall facing the camp was made of glass so the room's inhabitants, mainly the ones that couldn't leave the Big House, could feel like they were part of the fun.

I looked around a little more. The furniture in the room was bland, the walls were white, the bed didn't have spectacularly interesting covers on it, and the door in the wall open just enough to be peeked into revealed a spotless white tile bathroom. The room, however, didn't feel bland at all, thanks to the hundreds of colourful paintings that covered the room from wall to wall. Paintings of everything, from beaches to sunsets to cities to people, hung on the walls, stood in stacks on the floor, sat in large paint splattered easels, and stared at me from the ceiling. She was a good artist, I'll tell you that, because I felt the eyes of the portraits staring me dead in the eyes as I looked around.

Rachel pulled a chair across the room and sat down on her bed, motioning for me to sit in the chair. She grabbed a blue plastic hairbrush off the dresser next to the bed and started brushing her long red hair with it.

"So why have you chosen to consult the Oracle, dear child of Chaos?" she asked, pulling the hairbrush back and forth through her hair. She looked amused with my expression.

"Um... how'd you know I was a child of Chaos?" I asked hesitantly.

"There isn't a person in the camp who doesn't know who you are, hun," she said, supporting a thick New York accent I was only just noticing.

"Aah..." I shifted uncomfortably in my chair. "I'm here because of a dream I had last night."

"Tell me about it," she said, all traces of amusement gone.

And so I did. I told her about the door and how the triangle didn't glow blue when I touched it, but red. And how Katie and Nico and the world around me began to crumble and the humming started to get louder and louder and now Chaos started talking to me, warning me of my future and of my self and of my- I stopped. Her eyes were glowing bright green and she was staring at me like I wasn't there. She wasn't staring at me, she was staring _through _me.

She opened her mouth and the voice that started speaking wasn't one that I recognised. It was sort of three different voices talking at once, all at different pitches, sounding almost snake like as it twisted and turned its way through my future. What she, _it_, said was,

"_When the summer begins, a new child will arise, _

_A friend to two half bloods, a god in disguise._

_Her and two others will travel the world,_

_A son of death, a daughter of warmth._

_In search of her future, in search of her past,_

_Love and strong hatred will soon cross her path._

_A child of Chaos will search for her blood,_

_And come back to camp with much more than she should." _

As soon as she was done with the odd serpentine poem, her eyes closed and she sat there like that for a second, letting the colour return to her face. When she opened her eyes again they were blue like before.

"That weird enough for ya?" she asked, a smirk spreading across her face.

"Um..." I was speechless. What just happened?

"Thought so. Come on, we're going to talk to Chiron. Try not to drag your jaw along on the floor with you, kay?" she said, standing up and grabbing my wrist, pulling me out of the room.

_Huh? _

_..._

"I think it has something to do with finding her real father."

"How's she gonna do that? Go up to Olympus and demand that Chaos tell her who she screwed down on earth?"

"The prophecy states that she will travel the world..."

"But that doesn't mean she'll find anything."

"Yes it does. It says that she does."

"Um... do I get a say in this?" I was getting sick of watching a council of people I hardly knew discussing my future. It's my prophecy, spouted especially for me. You'd think I'd get to speak more often.

"Hush, Sofia," Annabeth said, waving an impatient hand in my general direction, her eyes locked on Chiron who was now reading the prophecy aloud _again._

"What does it mean by '_love and strong hatred will soon cross her path?'" _Percy asked when Chiron was done.

"I guess she'll meet some people she doesn't like, and some people she really does like." Katie's explanation seemed rational, as always.

"And what about the bit about her being a god in disguise?" Percy asked. "Are we sure it's about her being the god in disguise?"

"Of course it's about her being a god in disguise. It has to be about her. If it wasn't, the whole thing would be grammatically incorrect. The Oracle is never grammatically incorrect," Annabeth said.

"How can she be a god? She can hardly finish a sentence without destroying something around her," Percy said very matter-of-factly.

"I'm sitting right here!" I whined. Nobody paid me any attention.

"What about coming back to camp with much more than she should?" Katie asked.

"Maybe that means information?"

"Or people?"

"Or treasure?"

"How about we let Sofia have a say!" I screamed. No response. Was I _invisible? _

"I think we need to keep a very good eye on her. Her emotions have never been so out of control," Chiron said, grabbing a pen and going to write a something on a large piece of parchment paper.

"We need a strict plan. And preferably not one that Sofia can contribute towards," Annabeth said, moving so she could look over Chiron's shoulder at what he was writing.

That did it. For the third time that day, my emotional wall fell to a crumpled heap at my feet and I watched as a large beam from the ceiling of the Big House and onto the large wooden table the five of them were crowded around, breaking it completely in two. _That _got their attention.

"Right! Hello, my name is Sofia Lovette, daughter of Chaos, have we met? You don't seem to remember me," I sneered, looking at all their surprised expression with own expression, one of complete and utter fury. "This is _my _quest! And I will have some say in it, please! I'm not letting a snooty blonde, her waterlogged boyfriend, my magazine obsessed best friend, a man who's half man half horse, and the son of the devil decide what happens on _my _quest!"

"Sofia," Chiron tried to protest, but I cut him off.

"From this point on, I'm in charge of what happens regarding anything to do with me, whether its a quest, a decision regarding what to tell the media surrounding my disappearance, or even a trip to the beach. Got it?"

"Sofia, you don't have the authority to make those decisions," Chiron tried again. I cut him off again.

"Oh don't I?" I said, turning to him and placing my hands on my hips, looking at him with a challenging look complete with my raised right eyebrow and everything. "I'm pretty damn sure that I'm not seven anymore, Chiron," I spat.

"But you're still only fifteen!"

"You were letting Percy out in the real world, with complete say in his affairs, at _twelve! _Why am I not entitled to that?" I cried. A book from the shelf on the far right wall flew crashed into the window beside it, sending broken glass falling all over the floor.

"Because you can't control your emotions!" Chiron roared, slamming his hands down on the table and rearing up to his full height.

"I'm never going to be able to control them, Chiron! I'm a daughter of Chaos, for crying out loud! Chaos can't be tamed! It's _chaos! I'm never going to be able to control them!_" I shouted back at the top of my lungs. The door to the Big House started slamming open and closed, open and closed, more books started throwing themselves across the room, the chairs underneath the four two-legged people around the broken tables started pulling themselves out from under them. Chiron watched the entire ordeal in horror, watched as his precious Big House was destroyed because he upset a child of Chaos, in silence.

Suddenly, the entire room fell silent. To the five people watching the events around them, the silence was like an old friend, one they hadn't seen in a long time, one that you can never be sure will bring good events or bad events. To me, the silence was just as unexpected, but more of a good thing. I was no longer standing atop the ruined table, but sitting cross legged in a chair, my eyes closed and my hands resting palms up on my knees. I watched as the colours swirled across my eyelids, funny colours like orange and yellow, soothing colours like blues and purples, and deep thoughtful colours like black and, well, black. I let those colours wipe my mind of all thoughts, all worries, all emotions, and suddenly, the room was silent.

When I opened my eyes, I saw every other person in the room watching me in shock. I stood up, smoothed out my top, and said, "I stand corrected. I can control my emotions. Now can you stop treating me like I'm six?" I received lots of eager nods as a reply. "Good. I believe this meeting is over." And at that, I walked from the Big House and out into the camp, leaving my astonished acquaintances behind.

The only thought on my mind as I walked towards the Chaos cabin, _"How did I just do that?" _

_..._

**Author's Note: I'm satisfied. Are you satisfied? Good. Whatever you just said, good. ****Until next time!**

**Mags**


	9. Broken Arms and Taddletale Pegasi

**AN: Thank you United States, United Kingdom (WHOOP WHOOP!), Australia, India, Canada, Brazil, Denmark, Malaysia, Ireland, Sweden, Indonesia, New Zealand, Croatia, Norway, South Africa, El Salvador, Bulgaria, Taiwan, Philippines (my dad is in your lovely country right now, actually!), Singapore and any other country I may have missed for viewing my story! Much love to you guys! **

...

"_I'm loving it." _

"_Finger lickin' good."_

"_Possibilities..." _

Everybody has a catch phrase. Mine? "_Did I do that?" _And for once, as I uttered those all too familiar words, I wasn't greeted by angry looks and half assed nods as helpless eyes scanned the ruined horizon around them. I was greeted, _rewarded _even, by a no as I got to sit back and watch the suave, perfectionist king of the ghosts royally screw up.

Packing for a quest, as I've been informed repeatedly by the members of my, and let me say it again, _my _board of trustees is not an easy task. However, for our trio of demi gods, all was going pretty well, which is quite surprising considering two thirds of the trio is constantly at each other's throats. After being told to clean my room, and me begrudgingly doing so even though it went against all of my philosophies in life, we hit no other bumps in the road. A week had gone by and nothing bad had happened. All was going well, until that sunny Saturday morning events took a turn for the worst.

It all started with an honest mistake. Nico, after waking me up at six in the morning and proclaiming that I needed to learn how to ride a Pegasus, dragged my half asleep self down to the stables and suited me up with who he said was the calmest Pegasus, a filly named Bandersnatch. Yawning loudly, I gripped hard on her long brown mane and waited for Nico to lead the Pegasus he was planning on riding out from the stables.

"Are you sure this is such a good idea?" I called into him after the fifth resounding "OW!" that came from the inside of the stable.

"Yeah, it's fine," he called back. "Ow, Blackjack! Don't kick me there!"

"Nico, I don't have to learn how to ride a Pegasus," I said, stroking Bandersnatch's mane gently. She was a beautiful creature, a deep shade of chocolate brown, her large, majestic wings stretching out for what seemed like miles in both directions. I'd never seen a creature so magnificent before, not even dolphins or doe came within the area of beauty the Pegasus inhabited. From the moment I laid eyes on the Pegasus I'd be riding, I fell in love.

"Yes you do. It'll come in handy. Okay, here we go, Blackjack." And with that, a large black Pegasus emerged, looking quite upset, from the stables, Nico sitting proudly on his back.

"Blackjack doesn't look happy," I said, watching the Pegasus carefully. His nostrils were flaring every time he breathed and he had a crazy look in his eyes. Nico was too proud of himself to realise that the horse he was on wasn't very keen on the idea of having to cart him around.

"He's fine. Okay, here we go. Just tell it to fly and the Pegasus will do so. Be soft, though. They don't like loud noises," Nico said, no longer shouting. He looked down at Blackjack, who was still doing the flared nose crazy eyed thing as he stared back up at his rider. "Okay, Blackjack. Fly!" Nothing. "_Fly_!" Nope. "COME ON YOU STUPID HORSE! PUT THOSE DAMN WINGS TO GOOD USE OR I'LL CUT THEM OFF IN YOUR SLEEP!" And with that, the Pegasus took off.

"Come on, girl, fly for me," I whispered to Bandersnatch. She went up in the air immediately. I was liking her. However, Blackjack wasn't liking Nico.

Nico was having trouble keeping the Pegasus upright. Blackjack, clearly pissed off with Nico for some reason, was taking random twists and turns throughout the air, trying to shake Nico off his back. Nico glared down at the troublesome Pegasus with a look of pure hatred.

"Listen, Blackjack. You're going to get your crap together and cooperate with me, okay?"

The Pegasus didn't listen.

"Blackjack, _please_!"

Nothing. Again.

I sat there, well, hovered there, stroking Bandersnatch's mane gently with one hand while the other gripped her hair as tightly as I could. Quite a good representation of my mindset at that moment, actually. Half of me was watching Nico fail in amusement, calm and collected, and the other half was starting to freak out because I was hovering fifty feet in the air and the boy who was supposed to be teaching me how to ride a Pegasus was about to get flung to the ground and, most likely, to his death. I took deep breaths, trying to calm my scared side, and for a while, it worked. The cool morning air nipped at my ears, clearing my mind and keeping me focused on not falling off. However, that calm facade was blown when Nico and Blackjack's fight started to get a little out of hand.

Blackjack had taken to flying upside down in an attempt to get Nico to let go. Nico was hanging onto Blackjack's long black mane with one hand hanging feet towards the ground, desperately trying to get his other hand up and onto the Pegasus. Needless to say, it wasn't working.

"BLACKJACK I MEAN IT! THIS ISN'T FUNNY ANYMORE!" Nico yelled to the Pegasus, who continued to do his mindless stunts through the air, ignorant to the fact that there was a boy clinging blindly to his mane. "BLAAAAACKJAAAAAAACK!" Nico's voice travelled in circles with the rowdy Pegasus as he turned loops in the sky. "DAMN IT, BLACKJACK, YOU'RE KILLING ME!"

"_What?" _That got my attention. I looked up from Bandersnatch's soft mane and settled my eyes on Nico. He was being pulled through the air by the ignorant Pegasus like a little flag on an jet plane, clinging on for his life, helpless in comparison to the huge flying thing that held its life in its hands, hoping,_ praying_, that it didn't fall off.

"Sofia! Can you ride down and get ready to catch meeeee!" Nico was dragged off in the opposite direction. Bandersnatch hovered idly.

"Come on, Bandersnatch! Follow them!" She obeyed and we were sent hurtling towards Blackjack and Nico at a speed similar to that of a race car.

Just as Nico and Blackjack came into view, Blackjack turned around and sped towards us, flying off in the opposite direction. Bandersnatch turned and followed just as quickly and, for a moment, catching up to them looked like it might happen. Look again, Sofia, because, oh! Here comes Blackjack! The Pegasus had turned around again and was speeding the other way, Nico clinging helplessly onto his mane, trying his best to climb up onto Blackjack's back, and looking like he sort of dreaded the idea of getting back on because he knew he would just be thrown off again when he did. Back and forth, Blackjack sped one way and another, trailing Nico along like a limp ribbon on his mane, Bandersnatch following relentlessly, myself starting to freak out because I didn't like the situation we were in one bit.

After about five minutes of this back and forth and back and forth nonsense, my leg suddenly took a trip downwards. I slipped completely to the left, clinging onto the Pegasus at a 90 degree angle. I called out to Bandersnatch but she didn't seem to hear me. One thing I learned about Pegasi that day- when you set them on something, there's no breaking them out of that state.

I gave up trying to get through to the Pegasus and turned my attention to Nico, who was in a similar situation to me. "_Nico!" _I screamed over the hundred mile an hour winds. "_I'm slipping!" _

"Just hold on, Sofie! You'll be off soon!_" _Nico screamed back, though his voice didn't seem so reassuring. Neither did his position, which was hanging feet towards the ground again as Blackjack flew upside down above him.

"I can't! I'm slipping!" I let out a bloodcurdling scream that frightened even me as my right leg slipped off the Pegasus, landing me in the exact same position as Nico, hanging onto the speeding Pegasus by only its mane. "_Nico!" _I screamed at the top of my lungs. My left hand started to slip out of the mane it was holding onto.

Surprisingly enough, my powers seemed to be pretty calm throughout the entire debacle, up until then, however, when they turned on full blast. As my left arm started to loose strength and slip downwards, the clouds above us began to change colour. No longer were there just one or two, either. Huge clouds of grey and black replaced the cute puffy white ones of a minute ago, and for the first time in years, ran began to fall onto Camp Half-Blood.

Hail stung our skin as it too began to fall from the clouds. The little ant sized people on the ground peered up at us in confusion as their bodies were covered in water. Nico managed to get his right arm up and onto the mane as he turned himself around and stared at me. "You need to calm down!" he cried over the sound of the wind, which was picking up now. The air around us started to smell like rain, and, if possible, grew even colder.

"I'm trying!" I sobbed, my tears lost in the rain.

"Try harder! You're only making the situation worse!" he called, looking nervously up at Blackjack. He seemed to be enjoying the rain, and was turning circles in the sky to get the full effect of it. Thank God it wasn't thundering- wait. Never mind.

A loud crack of thunder resounded through the camp, sending the Pegasi into a state of sheer panic. Nico had told me only twenty minutes ago that Pegasi hate loud noises, and here we were, clinging onto two Pegasi that had trouble controlling their impulses on a normal sunny day, in the middle of a thunderstorm. _Literally. _We were inside the clouds, surrounded by the crashing of the thunder and the sudden bursts of light that accompanied it on every side.

I looked up at Bandersnatch. She wasn't taking the thunderstorm too well either. She was doing a similar thing to Blackjack, a sort of panicky, swirly dance as she searched for a way out of the storm accompanied by a nervous whinny every few seconds that drowned out every attempt at talking to each other Nico and I tried.

I did my best to try and fling myself back onto Bandersnatch but nothing I could do would help my situation. In fact, my constant struggling seemed to make my situation worse. My right hand was slipping now, and once that one went, I'd be hurtling towards the ground at a speed of nearly a hundred miles an hour. I screwed my eyes shut and whispered over and over again, "_Help me, help me, help me, help me..." _

After a minute or so, I peeked one eye open to look up at Bandersnatch but, instead, caught sight of Nico, eyes shut, falling towards the ground. The sound that I screeched out when I saw him fall out of the cloud and thus out of my sightline was supposed to be something along the lines of a "_NO!" _or "_Nico!" _but instead, all that came out of my mouth was a horrible garbled scream.

And in that clouded, confused, dazed, horrified moment, I made the decision to let go of the frightened Pegasus I had been clinging onto.

It's an odd sensation, falling. When people think of falling, falling fifty feet down towards the ground and most likely, to their deaths, the first thing that comes to mind is that you'll see your life flash before your eyes. If anything, the only thought that was on my mind as I fell through the sky and towards the forest below was how long the distance seemed to be. The feeling of the wind biting, gnawing away at my ears and at my nose, the deafening roar as I fell through it, wasn't as frightening as I'd anticipated it to be. My muscles, after straining themselves for so long as they tried to keep hold of an animal moving so fast, seemed to go into shock now that they didn't have to do anything. Now that they could just sit there and let me fall. Almost as if turned off by something as simple as a light switch, every muscle in my body fell asleep. Stopped moving. Stopped feeling. My hands relaxed, my eyes fluttered closed, by heartbeat slowed, time seemed to pause, to stop, as I felt the air thicken around me. As I felt the last tiny slivers of consciousness slip from my limp bodice.

And with a final, hard jolt to my body, all the remaining slivers were tugged away and into the black oblivion I was all too familiar with.

...

_Nico... Nico... Nico... Nico... _The dark, handsome boy who I saw hurtle towards the ground looking very much unconscious before I too joined him in the realm of the unknown haunted my dreams that night. Or day. Or however long I was asleep. The sight of his body, already gone from this world, falling limply to the ground, the sight of his calm, sleeping face lingering in the back of my mind tortured my confused, frightened soul as I fell victim to the dreams I couldn't fight against.

The scariest thing about those dreams, however, was that a good deal of them could have been true. One of those little dreams was entirely about his funeral, another showed in horrifying detail his corpse being torn apart and eaten by hungry wolves. Each time I watched another terrifying scene about Nico play across my eyelids, I felt myself break into a cold sweat I could feel even in my deep, distant sleep.

I woke to the feeling of a wet cloth being placed across my forehead. When I opened my eyes, just enough to get a picture of who was standing over me, I saw it was a tall blonde I knew I recognised from somewhere though in my semi dazed state, I couldn't for the life of me tell you where. She smiled at me once she saw me beginning to regain consciousness, and shoved a straw into my mouth. When I sucked on it, I felt the comforting taste of vanilla frosting fill my mouth. Ambrosia_. _Was I that hurt?

I tried to stretch out my limbs but was met with the familiar feeling of a broken bone from my right side. My entire right arm screamed in protest as I tried to wiggle it.

"Oh, honey, don't do that," the girl said, pulling the straw from my mouth and laying a tender hand on my arm. "Keep still, okay?"

"Where's Nico?" I asked, my speech slurred and sleepy.

"On the bed next to you. Get some rest, okay?" Her face was kind. That was all the reassurance I needed.

"Okay..." And I fell back asleep again.

The next time I woke up, it was to the sound of an owl hooting right outside the window. I yawned and stretched out my arms, again feeling the sting of the broken bone on my right side when I attempted to move it. I gave up and slowly slid myself up on the bed, just enough so I was sitting.

By light of the moonlight, I could examine the room I was in. I was in the infirmary, just as I suspected. About ten other campers lay in the beds in the room, all asleep, some snoring, some murmuring to themselves, one was even sucking his thumb.

My head felt light and dizzy, like I'd hit it pretty hard when I'd fallen. I'd felt this once before, when I fell off the top of a play set as a kid. The doctor had said I had a concussion. I glanced down at my right arm and found it in a sling across my chest. My bone, the one that had miraculously been healed by the ambrosia just two days after it broke, was broken again and this time, it hurt even more.

I reached over to the table next to the bed and grabbed the glass of ambrosia that was sitting there. The warm taste of frosting filled my mouth as I sipped slowly from the straw. I turned my head from the corner of the room I'd been staring at before and to my left. There, on the bed next to me, was laying a peaceful looking Nico, asleep like a baby and surprisingly enough, unharmed.

Just the sight of his face was enough to calm any nightmares I could have in the night hours to come. Despite the few bruises he had on his arms and his forehead, and a large gash that cut down his cheek, he seemed fine. I let out a long, pent up sigh, and placed the glass of ambrosia back on the table. I shot Nico one last look as I curled back up and promptly fell back asleep.

I got the feeling I hadn't been asleep for very long when I woke to someone shaking me violently. I opened my tired eyes and found a very nervous looking Percy standing above me.

"Sofia, wake up!" he said, shaking me violently. His eyes darted around the infirmary quickly, constantly checking that he hadn't woken any other patients. The dim light in the room told me it was only dawn. What could Percy possibly want from me this early in the morning?

"What, Percy?" I said, rubbing my eyes and sitting up slowly, not that it helped my pounding headache at all.

"Why did you and Nico take the Pegasi for a ride the other day without any supervision?" he asked, looking worriedly down at me.

"What? Because Nico kept assuring me that it was fine. I didn't think we needed supervision," I replied, using my good arm to fix the position of my sling.

"Did Nico seriously think that a Pegasus was going to cooperate with him?" Percy asked incredulously, as if anybody should know the answer to that.

"Um... apparently..." My headache was impairing all trains of thought. I felt like mush.

"Why in Tartarus would he think that? He's a son of Hades. Pegasi are the animals of Poseidon and Zeus," Percy said, sitting on the end of my bed and staring at the sleeping Nico beside me with what looked a little like pity. "The poor guy must have taken quite a beating. Pegasi have never liked him. They never will."

"Why did Bandersnatch go after Blackjack so fiercely and not care at all about me?" I asked. "Do Pegasi hate Chaos as well?"

"Oh, no. No creatures hate Chaos. She's the ultimate mother. Blackjack and Bandersnatch are mates, that's all. What Blackjack does, Bandersnatch will do, and vice versa. Bandersnatch thought Blackjack was playing," Percy explained.

"Why didn't Nico and I die when we hit the ground?" I asked after a moment of silence.

"Your fall was cushioned by the trees. When you hit the tops of the trees, you fell down onto the ground with only half the power."

"Oh."

"Yep." Another silence followed, though it was more pensive than awkward. Percy turned towards me after a few minutes of that silence. "You do realise, Chiron's not going to let you out on your quest now that you didn't control your powers."

"_Who told you?" _I spat, launching myself as far forward as my headache and the blankets across my legs would let me.

"Blackjack." Not the answer I was expecting.

"Blackjack?"

"My father created Pegasi. I can hear their thoughts. It's pretty cool, actually. Blackjack told me all about your little panic attack," Percy said, looking thoughtfully out the window.

"But you're not going to tell Chiron, are you?" I asked, dreading the answer.

"I have to. I'm head camper. It's my job," Percy replied.

"But you can't! I can control my powers!" I protested.

"Obviously not! Nearly plummeting towards your death because you lost control of a Pegasus is one thing, but causing all kinds of weather related disasters in the process, that's not something we can risk letting out in public. Mist can only cover up so much, Sofia."

"This isn't fair!" I cried, not caring if I woke any other sleeping campers. "You can't just allow me to go on some godly quest, complete with a prophecy and a backup team, and just turn around and take it back!"

"Chiron can," Percy replied solemnly.

"No he can't!"

"Yes, he can! Now I've got to get back to my cabin. I'll see you later?"

"Whatever," I grumbled as he walked out of the infirmary, leaving me and the other sleeping campers.

I leaned back against the headboard of the bed, running my hand through my blood matted hair. Judging by the pain coming from my face, I had a large cut on my forehead. I sighed, pulling my hand from my hand and studying the red on my skin.

"We're still going on this quest, don't worry," Nico's voice suddenly said from next to me. I jumped and turned my head to look at him. He was lying on his side, his head propped up on his arm.

"What?"

"We're still going. What was it that I said to you the first day I met you? That I don't take orders from ancient centaurs and wine sodden minor gods?" He had a mischievous smirk plastered to his face.

"Something like that," I said, turning my body so I was looking right at him. "How are we going to leave for this quest if Chiron won't let us?"

"Easy. We sneak out. It's not that hard, to be honest," Nico said.

"You've done it before?" I asked.

"I've not only gotten out of this camp, I've ran away and stayed invisible for nearly two years. It's all about timing," he said.

"Oh. So we're sneaking out?" I asked, just to clarify. My head was still throbbing. I grabbed at the ambrosia and took a sip. It helped.

"If you want to. The only hard part is gonna be getting Katie to come along," he said, thinking.

"What do we have to do? Kidnap her?" The look on his face was not one I wanted to see. "No, no, no, we are _not _kidnapping Katie!"

"Why not? It's not like she really has a say anyway. The prophecy states-"

"The prophecy says nothing about kidnapping," I interrupted.

"But it never says she's going to choose to come along," Nico shot right back. I sighed in defeat.

"So we're kidnapping Katie?"

"Awesome! But it has to be soon or Chiron's gonna take you and lock you up somewhere until you learn to control your powers."

"He'll do that?" I asked, horrified.

"It wouldn't surprise me," Nico replied, sitting up and pulling the shirt on the end of the bed over his head. In the five seconds I got a look at his chest I spotted multiple bruises and a few deep cuts. I looked down at my own torso and wondered what bruises and cuts lay there.

Once Nico had his shirt on, he looked at me thoughtfully. "So what now?" I asked.

"We're going back to your cabin and I'm going to show you how to pack for a real quest, not some Chiron quest," Nico said, ruffling up his hair and standing up. I sighed and followed him to the door, taking my ambrosia with me.

When we reached the Chaos cabin, I opened the door silently and let Nico through. He sat himself down on my couch as I closed the door silently behind me and went to get my backpack.

"What do I need?" I asked.

"Pack four days worth of clothes, two nights worth of pyjamas, one set of winter ones and one set of summer ones, and as many different layers as you can fit. Then throw in toiletries, socks, _never _forget socks on a quest before- I've done that, it's not nice- and anything else you might need. I'd recommend bringing the laptop too," he said, motioning towards my dresser.

"So clothes, pyjamas, toiletries, laptop..."

"Socks."

I laughed. "Socks," I said, putting five pairs in the top of my bag. "Anything else?"

"Coins. You have any gold drachmas?" he asked.

"Yeah, I have a few. Annabeth gave me some the other day," I replied, opening my piggy bank and pulling out five gold drachmas.

"Perfect. Any other knickknacks you want to bring?" he asked. I thought for a moment before climbing up to my top bunk and returning back down with the locket I kept under my pillow. Inside was a picture of my mother. I undid the clasp and put it on around my neck before tossing down a small teddy bear Katie had gotten me for my seventh birthday. That went on the top of my backpack with the socks.

"All done?" he asked.

"All done. Do you need to pack?"

"No need. I'm always packed. I'm gonna go grab my bag. Be right back."

I sat down on my couch and shoved my chap stick and my iPod in my jeans pockets. I fumbled with the zipper on my sweater, pulling it up and down as I waited for Nico to return. When he did return, I had broken the zipper.

I took off the sweater and pulled a new one from my closet, grabbing my backpack and following Nico outside the cabin. Without a word, he lead me to the back of the Apollo cabin, a cabin so big it made my cabin look like a shack. The inside of the cabin was dimly illuminated, from a light source resembling that of a nightlight. I kept forgetting Katie had little siblings. Against one of the back windows, the one Nico had led me to, was a large stack of _Seventeen _magazines. Katie's window for sure.

"She told me she was already packed the other day when she came in to visit me in the infirmary. When we get in here, I need you to grab her backpack and take my hand as quickly as you can. Grab my hand and don't let go, okay?" Nico asked, looking me dead in the eye. In the dim morning light, which was slowly growing lighter and lighter, he looked even more handsome than before. I could only nod. "Good. Here we go," he said, grabbing my hand. I felt the familiar crushing feeling of what Katie called Shadow Travel and suddenly, we were inside Katie's room.

The first thing I did was look around for the backpack. It was sitting next to her desk, and I flung it over my shoulder as best I could while avoiding my broken arm. As soon as I had the backpack on me, I grabbed Nico's hand, holding onto it tightly. And again, we were gone, but this time, I felt the tug of another person on my shadow.

...

When I opened my eyes, I was suddenly hit with how dark it was. I stared up at the sky. It was still the middle of the night and more stars shone in the sky than I'd ever seen before, even in Camp Half-Blood. We really were in the middle of nowhere, weren't we?

"Sofia? Are you okay?" Nico said, his hand still gripping mine.

"I'm fine. How are you?" I asked, not letting go of his hand.

"I'm good. Tired, but good," he replied.

"Where's Katie?" I asked. Nico didn't have to answer. A loud screech resounded from a few feet away, iconic and unmistakeable.

"WHERE THE HELL AM I?" Katie screamed.

"Calm down, Katie!" I said, letting go of Nico's hand and running towards Katie. "You're with me and Nico!"

"_Why?" _she screeched.

"We're going on our quest!"

"Um... no we're not! Chiron said you can't go until you learn to control your emotions!" Katie said.

"Nico said I can still go. He helped us sneak out. Isn't he nice?" I said, looking back at Nico, who was looking up at the stars thoughtfully.

"Um, no! Sofia, this is breaking the rules!" Katie hissed, hushing her voice like someone was going to hear her.

"You know what? I don't give a crap. We're going on this quest and that's final," I snapped, looking back at Nico.

"Amen to that. Okay, so I have absolutely no idea where we are, but we can almost definitely rule out Australia," he said nonchalantly, moving his gaze from the stars to us.

"Oh, that narrows it down to, I don't know, _everywhere!"_ Katie cried, throwing her hands up in defeat.

"Everywhere but Australia."

"Oh, shut up, Nico! It's your fault we're out here! Wherever the hell this is anyway..."

"Let's find some people, okay, maybe a diner or something?" I said, trying to reason with Katie. She sighed, placed her fingers on the bridge of her nose, and nodded slowly.

"Follow me," Nico said, leading us out onto what looked like a road under the dim moonlight. We began to walk down it and towards what we hoped was civilisation when Nico spoke again, this time, only to me. "We should probably, you know, hold hands or something, just in case you fall," he said, holding out his hand awkwardly.

"Oh, yeah. Makes sense. It's... um... dark..." I decided not to say anything else out of fear of embarrassing myself. I felt his hand slip into mine, and wondered if he was holding Katie's hand on his other side. I peeked over. He wasn't.

"Do you have _any _idea where we are?" Katie whined, peering helplessly out into the dark around us.

"Well, we're not in Australia," Nico said, a slight hint of humour in his voice.

"You've established that," Katie snapped.

"Right. And I don't think we're anywhere in the southern hemisphere, so we can rule out half the earth," Nico said, looking up at the moon. He was right, it looked exactly the same as the moon in New York. So we were in the northern half of the earth after all.

"Great. That still leaves half the earth though," Katie replied angrily.

"You are so glass-half-empty!" Nico said, poking Katie in the arm. "Relax, Anderson. We'll find out soon enough."

Aside from Katie's grumbling under her breath at Nico's careless Shadow Travelling, nothing else was said on the topic. We kept walking down the road, lead by the stars, in silence.

There was something comforting about the night time, there always had been. Katie, I know, was on edge as she walked with us down the lonely country road. She always was on edge when she couldn't see the sun. I, however, was never more comfortable than when I was in the dark. As I walked with my two best friends down that deserted road, my normally racing mind actually stopped for a while. I could think clearly. I liked it.

I began to think about just what we were going to do on this quest. I supposed the best thing to do first would be to find a way back to New York where we could travel up to Olympus and talk to my mom. After getting a few pointers from her, we could try to track down my father. Sounds simple enough, right?

The sun started to peek over the horizon after about an hour of walking. With the arrival of the orange light came the arrival of my other, racing thoughts. My calm state of mind had expired, and I was thrown back into chaotic oblivion as I could feel my hand cramping up inside of Nico's. Katie seemed to relax significantly once it wasn't so dark anymore and Nico looked, quite honestly, totally indifferent.

It was still pretty dark out but I could now make out more of my surroundings. It seemed that everywhere I looked was grass. The horizon was perfectly flat, the land surrounding us tinted with yellow. Katie, Nico, and I were walking aimlessly down what appeared to be an old cobblestone street, little green weeds poking up between the rocks that made up the ground below us. There was no doubt about it, we were in the middle of absolute _nowhere. _

The sun was starting to rise in the sky when Nico spoke for the first time in nearly an hour. "Okay so now we can rule out anywhere beside the United States," he said, examining the horizon.

"Why?" Katie asked. "Aren't there plains like this in Mexico and France?"

"No. In Mexico, all the flat land is desert, and in France, all the flat land is dotted with buildings," he replied. "The only place in the world with plains like this would have to be the US."

"Makes sense. What states are prairie states again?" I asked.

"Um... Nebraska, Oklahoma, Kansas, Montan—" He cut off mid-sentence, mid-word even and let out a huge yawn.

"Nico?" I asked after he stopped yawning, but didn't continue speaking. He just stared ahead, glassy eyed.

"Nico?" Katie pressed, looking like she was about to murder him.

"_Nico!" _I cried as he fell to the floor, taking me with him. Yeah, such a good idea, holding hands, Nico.

"Crap! I forgot! He falls asleep after Shadow Travelling!" Katie said, staring down us on the ground. I groaned and looked at the position we were in. He was laying on the ground in a crumpled heap, one arm draped across his chest, the other resting limply on the cobblestone street, myself laying horizontally across him. He looked far from comfortable, completely twisted, but he was out cold. And so suddenly too, how bizarre!

Katie offered me a hand. I nodded in thanks and pulled myself up, trying my best not to upset my broken arm.

"You okay?" she asked, looking me over.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Not so sure about Nico though," I said, looking down at him lying on the floor.

"He'll be fine. This happens every time he Shadow Travels," she said, crossing her arms across her chest and looking down at him.

"What do we do?" I asked, nudging his sleeping body with my toe. Yup, out cold.

"I'm all for waking him up and dragging him down the road until we come across a place he can crash and we can eat," she said, grimacing at him.

"What is it that Nico always says to you when you pull a mean face at him? Wipe it off your face or it'll get stuck that way?" I looked at Katie and her grimacing expression. She grimaced at me instead. "Let's do that then. How do you suggest we wake him up?"

"I'm all for kicking him," Katie offered, looking up at me.

"Let's not do that," I replied. "How about we try to shake him awake?"

"It won't work. You've got to look at it like he's in a coma. We've got to literally shock him awake," she said, nudging him with her toe like I did before.

"Sadly enough, we don't have any tasers, so shocks will not be applied. Anything else?"

"I dunno, noise?"

"I guess. You wanna try it?" I asked.

"Sure." Katie got down on her knees, looked up at me with an amused look in her eye, and pushed her hair behind her ear. And, with her head right next to Nico's sleeping face, she yelled, "_NICO!" _

Nothing. Not even a tiny bit of movement.

"Let me try." I got down on my knees and screamed, "_WAKE UP!" _into his ear. Again, nothing.

"_Nico!" _

"_Get up!" _

"_Sleeping on the job? You can get into some serious trouble for this!" _

We tried everything. Noise didn't seem to work. Katie, frustrated after nearly ten minutes of trying to wake him up, delivered an angry smack to him across the face, and what do you know? Nico woke up.

"Hades Katie! What was that for?" he cried, his hand flying to his face as he shot up. Katie was looking at him amusedly. I was just relieved.

"You wouldn't wake up," she replied simply, standing up and brushing the pebbles off her jeans.

"You didn't need to smack me!" he whined, standing up too. I did the same.

"What else were we supposed to do? Leave you lying in the middle of the street while we went looking for somewhere to eat?" Katie said proudly, knowing she'd won. Nico grimaced. Katie grimaced back. I stepped between them before it could escalate to anything more.

"Let's just keep walking okay? I'm starving," I said, looking at both of them.

"I am too," Katie said, swinging her backpack over her shoulder.

"I just want to sleep," Nico yawned, grabbing his own bag off the ground.

"Let's go then," I said, gesturing for the two of them to start walking. They complied and once again, we were on our way.

It didn't take long before a small building was visible at the end of the road. When it came into view, Katie, Nico, and I took off into a run towards it, finally happy to be near civilisation once again. The closer we got, the easier it was to read the sign on the front of it. _DINER _it read in clear red letters. We all let out a sigh of relief when we realised that it was open.

There was a man standing outside of the front door, smoking a cigarette and eyeing us curiously as we walked near him. Katie walked right up to him and he looked at her interestedly. He was a tall man, a good six foot two, with rotting black teeth and nicotine sagging skin. His shaggy brown hair was greasy and hung around his unpleasant face in such a way to emphasise that he wasn't a very nice person. And judging by the way he was looking at Katie, wearing her tiny cut-off shorts and tank top, it wasn't such a terrible assumption to make that he wasn't very pleasant.

"Hey, would you mind telling me what state this is?" she asked him confidently, almost smugly.

"Kansas," he replied, his cigarette bouncing up and down on his lip.

Katie turned back to me and the man's beady blue eyes travelled to her ass. "Nice going Nico. We're in freaking Kansas," she snapped, turning back around and storming into the diner.

"She's acting like I can't just Shadow Travel us out of here," Nico said, rolling his eyes and following her into the diner.

I turned to the man leaning against the wall, now eyeing me interestedly. "Thank you," I said before running after Nico and into the diner.

Through the window I spotted every customer's eyes on a pair in the farthest booth from the door. What were they seeing? A beautiful blonde teenager screaming at a handsome Mediterranean boy about what? Shadow Travel and quests and gods? I sighed and pushed open the door. This was going to be interesting.

...

**AN: Can't say I love the ending, but hey. Things don't always end up the way you want them to. So I did something terrible the other day, you wanna know what it was? I wrote the last chapter to this story before I wrote this one. The last chapter! So, officially, Chaos Has a Whole New Meaning, the wonderful story you have stuck with for nine gruelling chapters, has a real plot line! And a real ending I'm actually quite proud of! If you want to hear it and don't mind blowing the surprise for yourself, just PM me about it and I'll gladly tell you! I need to tell someone about it or I'm going to explode! Well... review! **

**Maggie**


	10. Here Be Pancakes

**AN: I'm going to Hell, I know. I'm terrible about updates. I'm one of those hypocrite fanfic readers/writers who yells at other authors in reviews for not updating every week when I've left my story nearly three months without any love. Please don't kill me, really, I'll get better at this, I promise. **

**Official Seal of Edit by Beta: CHECK! I looooove you, oh hetero life mate. You kick ass. And you're sitting right next to me as I type this. So you know that I'm saying this. :) GO SHANE! **

**Disclaimer: You're crazy if you think I own Percy Jackson. Nuff said. **

**...**

"I should watch out? _I _should watch out? You, boy, will be lucky if your balls are still in tact tomorrow morning! Don't be telling me to be careful! I'm not scared of you!"

I buried my head in my hands and tried to ignore Katie's screeches across the table to an equally embarrassed Nico. I didn't have to look up to know that the entirety of the diner around us (which, to be honest, consisted of not much more than a trucker eating off a large plate filled entirely with bacon, a skinny guy that looked like he hadn't slept in days surrounded by at least fifteen empty coffee mugs scribbling furiously in a notebook, and a waitress with a beehive haircut bigger than any other I'd seen before) was staring. Katie's voice was rising in pitch with every word that left her lips, every threat, every sneer, every angry comment. I mean, I understood why she was so angry, Nico did kidnap her and Shadow Travel us to a tiny town in the middle of nowhere, but she was overreacting, that was for sure.

"I'll chop all your hair off, cut of your ears, pluck out your eyelashes one by one, I'll-" She cut off suddenly. I looked up from my hands to find her and Nico staring at the beehive-haired waitress. I joined in and stared right back at her, waiting for her to speak. She didn't seem to be able to. It wasn't rocket science to figure out why; all of a sudden, three starving, irritable, wounded, sleep deprived teenagers she's never seen before burst in to her diner and instantly begin screaming at each other. I'd be pretty freaked out too, I bet we all looked a mess. I know Nico and Katie sure did, with their dirty clothes, un-brushed hair, and cheeks all flushed from yelling. I could only guess at what I looked at. No, I couldn't even bear to do that. I didn't want to think about what a mess I surely was.

I was waiting for the waitress to speak, about to just ask her what her name was and what there was to eat around here, but Katie beat me to it. And she didn't exactly ask as nicely as I would have done. "Yo, waitress, you gonna speak any time soon?" she asked in that Katie way that just made you want to slap her. I wouldn't have been surprised if the waitress had actually done it too, so many back in Texas hadn't hesitated to smack her when she went off on one of her spoiled brat rants. But that was just a price you had to pay to be friends with Katie. She was wonderful, sure, but facing the brat inside was something you couldn't manoeuvre around. We just got used to it.

"Um... my name is Sam, I guess I'll be your server today..." The girl looked around the diner as if in search of someone, probably someone who could take her place with this terrible group of strange, moody teenagers. She didn't succeed in her search for someone else, and she sighed, turning back to us. "Yeah, I will be. What can I get you guys to drink? We have coffee, ya'll look like you could do with some." Her southern accent was comforting, so much like my mother's. I opened my mouth to reply and wasn't surprised when my accent suddenly matched hers.

"Yes please, that'll be wonderful," I said back, smiling. The poor girl needed that. She seemed to regain her footing after hearing that I was from the south as well, and she seemed a little more confident. "I'll take it with milk, Katie here," I gestured to Katie, who was the closest I've ever seen a person to looking like a dog bearing her teeth, "will take it with two creams and two sugars, and Nico? What about you?"

"I'll take it black," he said simply, his head resting on his arms, now folded on the table. He looked like was going to pass out any second, probably from sheer exhaustion. Katie could be tiring sometimes, as was apparent here. She was angry at the waitress for interrupting her little rant, and she wasn't making any attempt to hide that. She continued to stare angrily at her with her teeth bared, looking like she was going to lunge across the table and attack her if she didn't just walk away, and after a few seconds, Sam got the message, nodding quickly to say she'd understood, and speeding away from the rabid girl in front of her.

As soon as the waitress was gone, Katie didn't skip a beat resuming her little rant. "I mean really, Nico, how hard would it have been for you to take us to, oh I don't know, Barbados or something? Somewhere nicer? Somewhere significantly less shabby? Is it really that hard just closing your eyes and poofing somewhere else? I can't believe you right now! And, we can't forget, that you kidnapped me to bring me here! I couldn't have a say in this? Why couldn't I have a say in this? I'm just as important as the rest of you! And maybe, if you'd let me in on this, we wouldn't have been taken to such a crap little town! You were obviously not thinking about _that_ now, where you, Zombie Boy! Sofia was _never_ one to go behind my back before _you_ came along, you dirty little son of the devil. You're a bad influence on her. If you'd have let her speak, maybe, she would have thought of bringing me along! I just can't believe you forgot me! You're such a bastard, you honestly didn't think about what I wanted to do! I mean come on-"

"Oh will you just _shut up!" _Nico cried suddenly, sitting up straight and cutting Katie off mid sentence. "Shut up, shut up, shut up! I've listened to you whine and cry and bitch and moan for the last _three hours, _Katie! You go on about how I always give you headaches? Well you're giving me one heck of one now, and I'd quite like for it to go away! So why don't you just shut up for ten seconds, please!" He put his head back down on his arms and closed his eyes, trying to block out as much light around him as possible.

Katie just stared at him, her mouth hanging wide open as she thought through Nico's audacity over and over again in her head. He never told her to shut up, normally just waiting out her little temper tantrums until the end and finishing off the fight with some brilliant remark Katie ends up wishing she'd come up with though she'd never admit it to him. But this time, he'd come right out and told her to be quiet, for the first time ever. Needless to say, she was shell shocked. As was I. She just sat there, mouth wide open, staring at him with a mixture of curiosity and a new level of anger in her eyes.

Sam came back just then, surveyed the scene cautiously, and put the three mugs of coffee down on the table before darting back to the kitchen and away from our table. I wanted nothing more than to be able to go and follow her, get away from the tension building up between the two of them, right about to explode, but I knew I couldn't.

I stared at Katie, wincing as I prepared myself for the loud screams and threats sure to follow, but I was surprised again at the fact that it was Nico who broke the silence first. But the most surprising thing was what came out of his mouth when he did.

"You know what? I am so sick and tired of your bitchiness, Katie, I really am. All I ever hear from you is how I don't do enough to help you out on quests, how I'm always causing you trouble, how I'm always an inconvenience to you, and I'm done with it! You're bitter and cold and lonely and angry all the time and, for some strange reason, you take all of that anger out on me. I wish I could help you with your problems, Katie, I really do, but to be honest, I don't know if my help would do any difference! Because you are so deep rooted in this idea that you are supreme, that you are in control, that the world revolves around you and your perfect little ideas. Well newsflash, Sunshine, it doesn't, okay?"

She was just gob smacked, staring at him with a shocked expression on her face. It was almost as if he and Katie had traded places, her just watching silently as he shouted angrily at her from the other end of the table, a strange sight indeed.

"Maybe, if you stopped running your arrogant little mouth for just a few seconds, which I honestly don't think is possible, you'd see that I actually do care about what's going on around us! That I do pay attention! That I'm not just tagging along to mooch off of you and get a couple good thrills along the way! I brought Sofia out here without Chiron's permission because I care about her and this quest! I brought us to a town in the middle of nowhere, though, I will admit it, at the time, I didn't know exactly where that middle of nowhere was, so we couldn't be tracked down! And I brought you along without your permission because I knew you would act like this! I care, Katie, I really do, so next time you spend hours bitching about how nobody cares about you and your needs, try looking past the end of your nose and thinking about other people for once, okay? You'll find it makes you a lot more friends than being a self centred bitch like you are now."

Katie, staring at Nico, completely shocked, didn't say anything. Sam returned then, and sensing that something was off, hesitated a second before opening her mouth to take our orders. "No, it's fine. Say what you were going to say," Nico said, waving a tired hand in her direction. "I was done."

"Um... okay... here are the menus. Do you need a minute to think?"

We looked them over quickly. "No, I think we're good," I said, speaking for both me and Katie, who was still staring at Nico, mouth hanging wide open. "I'll just get a large stack of pancakes and split them with Katie. What are you getting, Nico?"

"I'll have an apple Danish," he said, handing the waitress his menu. I did the same, and she walked away. As soon as the waitress was gone, Nico resumed his position from before, resting his head on his arms and ignoring Katie's shocked expression entirely.

After a few minutes, Katie turned to me as I was finishing off the rest of my coffee. It was crap, but it was caffeinated. That was just what I needed. She grabbed my arm and pulled me around to face her.

"Ow, Katie! That arm is broken!" I cried, pushing her off of it with my good hand.

"Sorry," she said half heartedly, before bouncing straight into defence mode. "Did you see that? The little bastard has the nerve to say all that to me? I'm not going to let him live this one down..."

"Katie," I said warningly. She looks at me. "Pick your battles, Kate. You've lost this one, okay? It's over. And he's right. You can be a little self centred sometimes."

At first she looked like she'd heard me wrong, but then she just looked betrayed. "Yeah, good to know who's side you're on, Sofia." And with that, she stormed out of the diner.

I sighed once I heard the little bell on the door, signalling that it was closed. A few seconds passed before one of Nico's eyes opened and he whispered, "Is she gone?"

I chucked and nodded. "Yeah, she's gone."

He sat up straight and squinted a little against the light, looking thoroughly relieved that Katie was no longer in our presence. "She can really piss me off sometimes," he said.

"Yeah, me too. You handled that well though. Gave her a taste of her own medicine." I smiled to tell him I was with him on this one. I normally didn't pick sides with this kind of stuff, but Katie was out of line this time.

Nico smiled back. "Your accent is different," he commented.

"I'm with my people now, I guess."

"People in Kansas have accents?" he asked.

"Weren't you listening to the waitress at all this past couple minutes?" I asked back.

"Not really. I was too busy plotting to kill Katie," he joked, but I knew he was really angry, so I didn't push it farther.

"Here are your pancakes, and here's your apple Danish," Sam said as she returned, placing the plates down in front of us. "Where's the... um..." She pointed to Katie's empty seat.

"The crazy one?" I offered.

Sam laughed. "Yeah, her."

"She stormed off outside a minute ago. She'll come back a little later," I told her. She nodded in understanding and walked off towards the kitchen. I looked up at Nico and saw that his Danish had already disappeared. "Um... someone's hungry," I laughed.

He swallowed and laughed too. "Yeah, I know. I like Danishes."

"I can tell." I took a bite of my pancakes. They were alright. They just tasted like pancakes. I opened the little tub of syrup and poured gallons of it over the top, taking another bite. Better. Much better.

Nico opened his mouth to say something, but was cut off by a loud scream from outside. We both looked towards the windows in the front and saw Katie struggling against the grasp of the strange man we had seen on our way in. He had hold of her arms, and was trying to pull her from the diner, towards an obnoxious looking truck on the side of the road.

"Oh my God! Katie!" I stood up, abandoning my syrup sodden pancakes, and darted towards the door. Nico jumped up just as quickly, knocking over his cup of coffee he hadn't yet drunk out of all over the table as he did.

"Get off of me, you dirty, disgusting bastard!" we heard as we ran outside, Katie's voice just as angry as before, only now it was laced with a hint of fear. "I'll call the police! I'll call the FBI! I'll call the fates and have you tortured for all eternity in Tartarus, you no good, dirty, nasty son of a fury!" she screamed.

The man laughed. "Come on, honey, be nice," he said in a slimy voice that sent chills up and down my spine.

"I have two friends in the diner right now! They'll come and save me!" she yelled, fighting him as much as she could with his tight grip around her wrists.

"Who? Them?" he asked, nodding in our direction. I watched as Nico's hand moved from inside his pocket. It reached around my waist, and for a second, I thought he was going to give me a hug, but then I saw his hand reach into my pocket. I tensed up, not really sure what to expect, and let out a sigh of relief when I saw his hand wrap around the hilt of my dagger, just chilling in my pocket, and pull it out slowly. He'd left his sword in his bag in the diner, I realised, once it left my pocket and he hid it behind his back. "They don't look like they'd do much. They're just watching. Come on, honey, come with me. I won't hurt you..."

He began to pull her away, pull her to the car. I wanted to lunge forward, I wanted to save her, but Nico's hand wrapped around my own wrist before I could and held me back. "Stay here," he whispered, and ran towards the man. With my dagger.

"Nico!" I screamed, and watched as he jumped on his back, and aimed my dagger at his throat. What the...?

I could hear Katie banging her fists on the doors to the truck that were locking her in, I could feel my own heart pounding, I could see Nico struggling against the man he was fighting who was putting up a strangely good fight, and I felt as my vision began to blur and my head start to pound. Great time for a panic attack, Sofie.

The air grew intensely hot all of a sudden, the wind beginning to pick up. I could hear Katie screaming even louder from inside the truck, something within scaring her. It was probably something I was doing, knocking something into her or whatever. I ran towards the back of the truck and stared at the deadbolt on the handles. How did he get that on there without us noticing? I shot a look back at Nico and the man and nearly screamed at what I saw. Out of the strange man's hands were beginning to grow claws, his nasty greasy hair turning a weird shade of blue, his eyes tinting orange, his face morphing into that of a... no, it couldn't be. I was hallucinating! There was no way on God's earth that this guy was turning into a dog. Then again, this isn't God's earth, is it? This is the Greek gods' earth, and in Greek mythology, things like this happened quite regularly.

"Nico! What's happening?" I screamed to him, now pinned against the front of the truck and firing several repeated attempts at the monster's chest with my dagger, missing every time.

"Sofia!" His voice was strained. "Get... Katie!"

He didn't have to tell me twice; Katie's screams were getting louder and louder from inside the truck. What used to be a series of loud threats and explicatives was now just loud shrieks that accompanied the heavy pounding of her fists against the doors. I focused my attention back on the truck but it was hard to do so over the screams of the people from inside the diner, Sam in particular, who I'm pretty sure was only seeing Nico attacking some random dude from her diner, the sound of the wind, and Katie's frantic banging against the door of the truck. What to do, what to do? I had no idea. I looked around for a stick or something, something to ram the door with, but I didn't see anything. In my search for a tree branch, something caught my eye from inside the diner. _Chairs. _

I ran inside, dodged past the confused diners at the tables, and grabbed a shabby looking white chair from a table in the corner. Jetting it back to the truck as best as I could with one arm, I got a running start at the doors and smashed them in. I felt the chair smash into the doors, one of the legs going straight through, and heard an even louder scream.

"_What in Tartarus was that?" _Katie screamed. I looked in the hole. She had her hands up over her eye. "Sofia? You did that? Why did you smack a chair leg into my eye?" I opened my mouth to answer. "Aw never mind, I'll be fine. Just get me out of here!"

"_How?" _I cried back, looking around for some way to get her out.

"I don't know! If I did, do you think I'd still be stuck in here?" She had a point.

"Um... maybe I can pick the lock?" I offered.

"Maybe. But what with? Shit, Sofia, I'm bleeding. Thanks."

"Sorry! And uh... how about I just slam the chair into the lock a couple times? Just stay away from the doors."

"Whatever, just don't hurt me, and make it quick! I keep getting hit in the back of the head with a box I think you're moving!"

"Sorry again! Okay, here we go!" I backed up and ran back at the door. I hit the lock once, twice, again and again and again, until finally, after what felt like hours even though I know it was probably only like a minute, the lock fell to the ground. I dropped the chair, feeling my shoulder, my only good shoulder, whine in protest, swung open the doors, and watched as Katie jumped off onto the ground, ran into the diner, and came out as fast as she could, arrow knocked and aimed at the strange dog-hybrid that Nico was currently standing in front of, eyes wide and scared, my dagger broken in half in his hands. Great.

In one swift movement, Katie let the arrow fly towards the monster, missing Nico's head by mere tenths of an inch, and hitting the dog-guy straight in the eye. Almost instantly, he exploded into a cloud of dust that floated away on the strong wind whipping around us. As soon as he was gone, Nico looked up from my snapped dagger in his hands and up at us. Katie and I ran up to him, Katie checking him over for injuries being the daughter of Apollo that she is, and me staring blankly at my broken dagger in his hands.

"Um... Sorry?" Nico looked up at me, more fear in his eyes than there had been while he was fighting the weird monster dude, and I just sighed.

"What'd you do?" I asked, picking the two halves of it up in my free hand.

"_I _didn't do _anything,"_ he said.

"You sound like a three year old," Katie said, rolling her eyes.

"You didn't let me finish!" Nico whined like a little kid just to make a point. I laughed. Katie grimaced and walked back into the diner to look at her eye in the bathroom mirror. It was pretty badly bruised, thanks to my little chair accident.

"What happened then?" I asked, thumbing the hilt sadly. This couldn't be fixed, that was for sure. I'd need my own dagger, my own way of defending myself. Nico was going to have to get me another one somehow.

"He broke it. Just swept his hand across it and it snapped clean in half. I'm sorry, Sofia, I really am..." He was being genuine, I could see it in his eyes, and I wasn't angry. In fact, I was sort of amused.

"Good, because now it's your responsibility to get me a new one. A custom one this time, made just for me. With your own money."

He sighed. "I had that coming. Okay, well we'll track down Katie, Shadow Travel out of here before Homeland Security shows up, and work out a plan."

"Sounds good to me."

"Me too."

**...**

_Sofia, Nico, and Katie's Superquest To-Do List  
*Oh-so wonderfully written by the super awesome King of the Ghosts Nico di Angelo ;)*_

_- Get Sofia a dagger _

_- Visit Hades_

_- Find Sofia's Dad_

_- Have a chat with Chaos _

_- Get Katie a haircut (snigger snigger)_

_- Find a place to sleep at nights _

_- Buy some socks _

_- Figure out how that monster found us_

"Is that enough?"

"I believe so."

"I can't believe after all that pestering about socks _you_ forgot to bring them! _You!" _

"Hey! Somewhere between nearly falling to my death from a Pegasus and trying to get you organised for the trip, I must have forgotten!"

I laughed. He had a point.

"So. Shall we order these tasks then?" Katie asked, looking at the paper before pulling out a chunk of Nico's hair.

"Ow!" he yelped, his hands flying to where Katie had pulled his hair.

"Karma's a bitch, Ghostie. You get your own haircut!"

Nico shut up.

"Back to the tasks at hand, please, children?" I asked, rolling my eyes. They both huffed and quit hurting each other. "Order then. Well first up already is getting me a new dagger, and I think that is sort of the priority, so we'll keep that one first." I checked to see if they agreed. They did. "Where's the best place to get me weapon, Nico?" I asked.

"Hey! Why do you ask him? I can give you a legit answer too, you know!" Katie protested.

I sighed. "Okay then, Katie, where is the best place to get me a new dagger?"

"Hephaestus. You want a custom dagger fit for someone as weird as you? You go to the god of jiggery-pokery. He'll make you a good weapon."

"Awesome. Up next, visit Hades. I'm sure Nico could get some socks from Hades, right? And that'll serve as a place to stay for a while. Does that one work as task two?"

"I think so!" Katie said as she brushed a piece of hair from her face, wincing a little as she touched her black eye. It looked really bad, I felt like crap. I'd apologised about it about as much as Nico had apologised about the dagger, which was quite a lot.

"Cool. So where's the entrance into the Underworld again?" I asked.

"Hollywood," Katie replied, reaching in her bag and pulling out a National Geographic map of the United States. Of course she would carry that around. Although Nat Geo didn't really seem like her style, it was a magazine, and where there's magazines, any magazines, Katie's bound to be there. "Okay so here's Hollywood," she said, pointing at a spot on the West Cost. I nodded along. "And here's Kansas." She winced as she said that last word. She was still pretty pissed about the fact that we'd been Shadow Travelled to Kansas, but she'd decided to drop it once she realised Nico wasn't in the mood to fight, which was something strangely civil for Katie to do. I was still getting over the shock.

"And where's Hephaestus's lair?" I asked, looking at the map. I prayed it wasn't in some place like Maine or Florida, somewhere out of our way.

"Yosemite, I think," Katie said, pointing to the area on the map where the national park would be.

"That's perfect!" I said happily, smiling down at the map. Yosemite was located conveniently en-route to California, we could stop in while we travelled. "What's the fastest way to get to Hollywood that would take us through Yosemite in the process?" I asked. I looked over at Nico, suddenly remembering that he was with us. He had been strangely quiet as Katie and I planned out our trip. It had been his idea to sit down and think all this through in the first place, why wasn't he contributing? Come to think of it, he did look a little pale.

"Nico? You okay?" I asked, looking at him curiously.

"The Labyrinth," he said quietly, his voice strained.

"What?" Katie and I asked simultaneously.

"The Labyrinth. The fastest way to get to California that takes us straight through Hephaestus's lair." He wouldn't look at us. His voice was quiet and scared. What was he not telling us?

"Duh! Why didn't I think of that!" Katie exclaimed, slapping her hand to her forehead and wincing in pain when it hit her bruise. She must have forgotten about it.

"The Labyrinth? That's real too?" I asked.

"Yep. It runs throughout the entire world, changing, of course, but passing through every major city or mythological landmark there is. Hephaestus's lair will be right on the main path, and all we have to do is hop on a couple minor ones and use a compass to find our way to the Underworld. Nice thinking Nico," Katie said, before covering her mouth with her hands. "Did I just compliment Nico di Angelo? Oh my gods, I did! You see this Sofia? It's your quest that's doing this! Blasphemy!"

**...**

**This was originally gonna be a longer chapter but I decided you'd rather have two short chapters updated within a couple weeks of each other than one long one and a leave of absence from myself for another three months (God, has it been that long? I feel like crap...). So parte dos of this little chapter will be up soon, don't you worry! Review!**

**Maggie :) **


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